Bring Back the Lakeshore Farmers Market

For 22 years, the Lakeshore Farmers Market was Sunday morning on the south side: 40 vendors, live bluegrass of wildly varying quality, the tamale line you planned your week around, and the only place in the neighborhood where a paycheck-to-paycheck family could double their SNAP dollars on fresh produce.

Then this spring happened. The lot we'd rented for two decades was sold for development with 60 days' notice, and the flash flood in April destroyed the trailer holding our tents, tables, signage, and the matching-dollars till. The market that survived two recessions and a pandemic got knocked down by paperwork and weather in the same month.

Here's the comeback. The Parks Department has approved us for the plaza at Calumet and 71st — better transit access, more shade, real bathrooms (vendors have feelings about this). We need new tents and tables ($6,500), a replacement cold-chain setup so meat and dairy vendors can return ($4,200), signage and permits ($1,800), and a restart of the SNAP match fund ($2,500). Total: $15,000 to reopen by Labor Day weekend.

The tamale lady is asking about us. The bluegrass band is, troublingly, rehearsing. Forty small farms and food businesses are holding their Sunday open. Let's give them somewhere to set up.