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On Saturday, Aug, 31, the Winchester High School Farmers Market Club successfully concluded its summer raffle fundraiser with the highly anticipated drawing of the winning ticket.
Over the past five weeks, the club had a booth at the market, engaging with community members and selling raffle tickets to marketgoers in an effort to support Anna’s Fund, a fund dedicated to ensuring that all Winchester and Woburn residents have access to fresh and nutritious produce at the market.
The winning ticket was bought by Cara Sterling, who will receive a basket consisting of blueberries from Farmer Dave’s, bagels and English muffins from OMG Bagels, croissants from Mamadou’s Artisan Bakery, jam from Wright-Locke Farm, macaroons from Atlas Commercial kitchen, bok choy from Flats Mentor Farm, peaches from Lanni Orchards, and two cartons of ice cream from Decorscoops.
The club would like to thank all the vendors at the market for their support in the raffle.
What’s next?
Moving forward into the year and as the market season concludes, the club hopes to continue to fundraise and support the market. Last year, the club held several bake sales and merch sales, with one raising over $200 and all proceeds going directly to Anna’s Fund.
In addition to fundraisers, the club recently launched a new series on Instagram titled “Vendor Spotlight.” Each week a new vendor is featured on Instagram, showcasing their unique offerings, top recommendations, and the current must-have items.
Ultimately, the goal is to learn something new about a vendor each week and help people make informed choices for their Saturday morning visits! Follow whs_farmersmarketclub to stay in the loop of our vibrant club community!
BriCo to the rescue
Along with the WHS Farmers Market Club, BriCo, another volunteer team, has been instrumental in facilitating market operations. Since the 2022 market season, many vendors have sensed confusion within the market — many shoppers were non-English speakers, making communication between vendors a challenge. Many of these customers were elderly Chinese speakers.
To combat the challenge, high school students Adam, Ethan, and Renee Lubomirski, as well as Matthew Chen worked together to form a volunteer group called Bridge to Connect, or BriCo, a volunteer group committed to bridging this communication gap and fostering a more inclusive market experience.
Under BriCo, the mission was to connect people with diversified backgrounds together and to build a better community around us. Besides translating, students also distributed matching funds to aid people suffering from food insecurity and showed up to the market weekly to help translate and facilitate transactions between vendors and shoppers.
“These students have gone above and beyond and have contributed enormously to the smooth running of the market,” said Farmers Market Manager Fred Yen. “They have stepped up to meet the challenge of dealing with huge crowds and have made a positive impact.”
The students have been at the market every week for the past three seasons and the team has grown up to about 25 people! All in all, this experience is mutually beneficial — students enhance their Chinese skills, while the market can run smoothly.
With a little over a month left of the 2024 Farmers Market season, both teams look forward towards ending this year strong. We’d like to thank everyone for their kind donations and support to the teams and the market.
