Jeffersonville farmers market to continue under new leadership

When Sierra Langdell and Olivia Comeau saw Deb Nevil’s announcement to stop organizing the market after a decade of leading it, they decided to step up to ensure it would continue.

Langdell, a real estate agent, had no prior experience organizing such an event but felt strongly the event was necessary for the community.

“There were just so many people that wanted to continue it and I wasn’t really sure where to start, but I took that initial step and then Olivia joined and she was great,” Langdell said.

Comeau, a behavioral specialist, has more experience with markets, so while Langdell took the lead on the administrative side, she has been busy consulting with the market in Richmond and the Vermont Farmers Market Association.

Langdell and Comeau held an open session for those interested in joining, returning to or simply providing input regarding the market, along with the members of the other markets, at Red Leaf Brewing in Jeffersonville in late February, and Langdell said their roster of vendors is shaping up. They plan to continue hosting meetings on the last Thursday of each month.

The new directors are currently working on attracting new sponsors, developing sources of funding, and trying to bring in one group they want to have a greater presence at the market: local farmers.

“We are potentially going to offer some sort of pricing option different for the farmers, if that’s preventing them from joining, because we really want to encourage the farmers, the fresh produce and such,” Langdell said. “Our biggest need at this point is some smaller vendors and some more funds.”

Moving on

In January, Nevil, who built the farmers market up through her own sweat equity over the past decade, posted a photo online of a decimated stage along with her announcement that the farmers market would be ending.

In the end, this only meant that her time organizing the market was ending and after all she had weathered — sometimes literally — it was time to retire her clipboard.

Cambridge businessman Berni Kuntzelmann, who now operates the Smugglers Notch RV Village set to open on the Mountain Road this spring, tried to establish a farmers market in Jeffersonville after he and his family sold the Cupboard Deli and adjoining restaurant in 2001.

Despite the Kuntzelmann’s attempts to make the market work at several locations, they struggled to attract consistent vendors and connect to a nascent customer base.

It wasn’t until Nevil took over the market in 2012 and moved it to its current location two years later that it became a sustainable summer fixture in the village.

“Berni was such a supporter, because he wanted to have a farmers market that was successful, and that never happened, so he gave us a lease for a dollar,” Nevil said. “We just ran with it, pulled it together in six weeks, and it went for 12 years.”

The farmers market brought in musicians, food vendors, artisans and local farmers. It allowed space for business owners to familiarize themselves with the community and test out their wares in a low-stakes environment.

“It is a business incubator. If you can’t put a business up (at a farmers market) then maybe you shouldn’t be in business,” Nevil said. “We’ve had businesses come in that have turned into brick-and-mortar businesses, so that’s really a wonderful thing.”

The event flourished right up until the COVID-19 pandemic hit. In the uncertainty of the moment, many of the farmers who reliably rented space at the market turned to more consistent, less hands-on forms of distribution with community-supported agriculture subscriptions and farmstands.

Though the market rebounded and continued to operate following the pandemic, Nevil said farmer participation never fully rebounded. Then last year, the field in north Jeffersonville flooded twice, first in the catastrophic flooding in July and again in December, washing away benches and damaging the field. Finally, the major windstorm in January took out the stage, leaving behind a pile of collapsed planks.

“I take signs from the universe,” Nevil said. “It was like a big, ‘it’s time to reevaluate this.’”

After she announced the end of her tenure, Nevil was more than happy to turn over the keys to the market’s social media pages and other resources, she just knew it was time for her to be done.

Now a new guard has big plans to rebuild. Cambridge Area Rotary will reconstruct the stage, Langdell said.

“I’m so thrilled that this younger generation is stepping up and love to see the energy and the different things that they will bring to it,” Nevil said. “I know they’ll have all kinds of other different creative ideas to bring to the table, which is important. It’s important to keep things fresh.”