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Farmers
market thrives in new location
It is just before 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, and a line already is forming
at the Marquette Commons in Downtown Marquette. Shoppers are waiting
for the bread man to begin selling his wares. By all accounts, there
is nothing like it.
This has been the first year the local farmers market has set up in
the new location, previously held in a parking lot a few blocks up the
street. The change in location has had a tremendous impact on the number
of vendors and visitors to the market. Pat MacDonald makes the short
trip from her home at Snowberry Heights.
“I love the fresh fruit,” she said.
According to Anna Patrick, Downtown Marquette Association director of
promotions, there has been a positive response to the new location,
from both vendors and shoppers. The attendance has at least tripled
since last year. Patrick, in partnership with Natasha Gill, community
outreach coordinator for the Marquette Food Co-op, organizes the market.
The farmers market season begins in June and runs until the end of October.
It is held on Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. A vendor can
be any resident of the U.P. selling a product made or grown in the U.P.
A small fee is charged to cover licenses and promotional costs.
“The farmers market is a venue that brings community together,”
Patrick said. “It turns out to be a social event for some people
who end up staying and visiting for hours.”
It’s not all about healthy, fresh food. There are fresh-cut flowers,
natural ingredient hand soaps, soap candles and artwork.
The vendors are as diversified as the fare. One is a retired woman who
has become a full-time gardener and loves to can. Her daughter encouraged
her to join the farmers market. Another is a man who works part-time,
but has a passion for his acre of vegetables.
Then there is Seeds and Spores farm in Skandia, managed by the Hatfield
family and fellow farmer Jeff Chiodi. Seeds and Spores consists of fields,
pastures, woods, swamps, ponds and meadows. The main focus is growing
five acres of vegetables. The farm also grows shiitake mushrooms and
woods-grown ginseng. The farm includes a flock of laying hens, Scottish
Highland cattle and Shetland sheep. Pigs and turkeys are raised seasonally.
Seeds and Spores is committed to providing quality local food to help
sustain community and environment.
The Marquette farmers market is one of five in the state that has been
chosen to participate in a pilot project that allows people receiving
government food program vouchers to make purchases at the market.
The project includes Bridge cards, debit card-type devices allow a person
enrolled in Project Fresh or Food Stamp programs, to transfer their
benefits electronically for fresh food purchases. The market is making
plans to be able to accept all types of credit and debit cards next
summer.
In the early days of Marquette, the city’s grocers and butchers
all sold fresh, local and natural fruits, vegetables, meats, milk products
and grains. So there isn’t much memory or record of actual farmers
markets by today’s definition. They lived a farmers market life.
For a few more Saturdays, you can experience fresh, local, natural,
picked-that-morning produce, know that dollars stay within the local
economy, and buy what is most healthy for you and your family. What
can get better than that? Sounds like a step back in time.
—Leslie Bek
Flu awareness season
brings public clinics
On October 11, 1918, Dr. Holm visited the home of David A., age thirty-three
of Ishpeming who had a severe case of the flu. The illness rapidly got
worse, and by the fourteenth, David was dead. His wife Anna, age thirty,
got ill and died a few days later. Drs. Barnett and Picotte at the Cleveland-Cliffs
Hospital were getting a number of seemingly healthy twenty- and thirty-year
olds with severe cases of the flu. By November, it was clear that Marquette
County would not escape the waves of influenza that were sweeping the
country. The worst was yet to come.
The last wave of this deadly illness hit on January 25, 1920, when Dr.
Picotte reported that Edith A. came down with the first reported case
of influenza in that year. She recovered. By February, so many people
became ill that the City of Ishpeming’s Health Office Record of
Diseases began using an inkpad and stamp to record “influenza”
as the cause of illness and death. On March 23, Richard Jr., age fourteen,
was the last recorded case in Ishpeming of what was one of the world’s
largest killing diseases. Richard was lucky and survived.
The saying “time heals all wounds” is so very true. We have
become complacent about an illness that caused tremendous fear some
eighty-eight years ago. Most of us do not get flu shots. The disease
seems pretty weak. However, nearly 35,000 deaths caused by the flu are
recorded annually in the United States.
Currently, there is a lot of attention to the Avian Bird flu, which
has killed millions of birds in Asia. While the disease has spread among
birds to the European continent, it has not yet spread in large numbers
to humans.
The first notable human-to-human spread of the disease was reported
just this summer in an Indonesian family in which seven of eight family
members died. It still has not moved into the general human population.
The CDC and other national Public Health agencies are working on early
detection and control to prevent this illness from getting into the
human population. So far, so good as it seems to still be a world away
and does not cause most of us any concern.
Locally, many health organizations, including the local health department,
have participated in exercises ranging from early detection of cases
to mass flu clinics. These exercises have helped prepare for the eventual
return of this illness or any other similar infectious disease. History
provides us with a record of how to avoid if possible, and lessen if
not, diseases such as these killer flu epidemics.
Public health rules and regulations that work to prevent illnesses such
as food borne diseases work to prevent the flu. Staying home when you’re
sick makes for good common sense, but yet, a lot of us still go to work
sneezing germs (viruses) and exposing others. Grandmother rules such
as washing your hands are as true today as in the good ole days. Yet,
how often do people really wash their hands after using restrooms or
cover their mouths when coughing? Studies show that a large percentage
of people do not.
The Marquette County Health Department will offer three special flu
clinics this October and November. The first will be held from 1:00
to 4:00 p.m. on October 23 at the Marq-Tran bus depot on Commerce Drive
(behind Westwood Mall). It will target people with disabilities who
find it difficult to walk into a regular clinic. It’ll be just
like going to a drive-up window—people will not have to get out
of their cars. The second clinic will be held at the Forsyth Township
Emergency Services Building/Fire Hall in Gwinn from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.
on October 24. Dr. Kroll and the Forsyth Township Fire and Emergency
personnel are supporting the health department with this clinic.
The last and largest flu clinic will be held at the Superior Dome from
1:00 to 6:00 p.m. on October 30. The goal is to get as many people through
with no wait times. In a real emergency, we need to be able to vaccinate
our population within five days…all 64,000 of us.
On November 2, there will be a flu clinic at the Marquette Senior Center
from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Other clinics may be scheduled.
Public Health is providing the public with the tools to be able to take
care of itself. The goal is to insure that all possible means are taken
to assist people to do just that.
For details, visit www.mqthealth.org or call 475-4195.
—George Sedlacek
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