INNISFAIL - The outdoor market at the Henday Centre mall parking lot returned this month for its fourth year.
And the popcorn man is back with his good tasting treats, including real fresh lemonade.
There are also new vendors who believe that having an outdoor venue like the Sundance Producers' Market is an important first big step in creating a premium outdoor gathering place for the town, an amenity many have wanted for years.
"This is definitely a first step in getting a nice gathering place where we bring people in from all over the place to our community and show them what we have, from our growers, to our artists to whatever. It is something I hope Innisfail works towards," said Deb Stoski, who is a new vendor at the outdoor market with her unique brand of art.
She is a tole artist and has been applying her talent since 2000. Tole painting is described as the folk art of decorative painting on tin and wooden utensils, objects and furniture. Typical metal objects include utensils, coffee pots, and similar household items.
However, Stoski's creations are on candy jars, Christmas decorations, school boards and Sleep Until boards for children. For the last 18 years Stoski, the co-owner of Innisfail Tire & Lube, has been selling her creations out of her business. However, she was asked by an official at Sundance Realty, which manages the outdoor market, to check out the outdoor market and now she runs a weekly booth.
"I like people. This gives me another avenue and I get to talk to a lot of people and it is a lot of fun," said Stoski, a big supporter of the potential an outdoor market has to bring community citizens together.
"If you look at the bigger centres their outdoor markets are a real gathering place," she said. People like to do it. It's fun. You get out with your family. It's something different to look at. It is a good time."
Meanwhile, organizers of this year's Sundance Producers' Market are confident about the upcoming season at Henday Centre. The first day of the outdoor market was June 12 and it will run every Tuesday until Sept. 11.
Shirley Lentz, the market manager, said they already have 12 vendors, and new ones that come on board as summer comes into full swing can set up a table at a regular price of $20 per week. She said there is also a discounted yearly price.
"We have a lot of the same vendors who keep coming back, our veggie growers and myself," said Nicole Nakamura, a market organizer who has been with the outdoor market since it began in 2015. "I think it is important because we want to encourage people to shop locally and we also want to encourage families who are not able to get to the morning market and come out to support our local growers and have the opportunity to see what is going on in our community."
Nakamura said an important difference between the Sundance Producers' Market and the long established indoor farmers market on Thursdays at the Innisfail Arena, other than the time of day and indoor and outdoor settings, is that there is a push to have all Henday Centre vendors be local.
"We base our market as a producers' market and as it stands now we really encourage our vendors that it has to be produced here. That is important to us. We would like to keep that as a grassroots, supporting local growers," she said. "Right now everything is locally produced. We do have a fruit truck that comes and sells some B.C. fruit and we now sell some basil from Nova Scotia, but it is not a product we can produce in Alberta. So, it's still Canadian right?"
For more information on the outdoor market at Henday Centre contact Lentz at 403-318-6429.
