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Since the movie “Field of Dreams” premiered in 1989, a simple but meaningful line has become part of the American lexicon: “If you build it, they will come.”
That applies to the KeyBank Delavan-Grider Farmers Market, which recently wrapped up its third season in East Buffalo. Following the racially motivated shooting that took place at a supermarket in Buffalo, NY on May 14, 2022, KeyBank, Buffalo GoGreen and The Delavan-Grider Community Center partnered to start the market on a bi-weekly schedule in the summer of 2022. In 2023, the market expanded to a weekly schedule, opening in late spring and wrapping up in the fall.
- WATCH: This effort and the difference the market has made in the community is highlighted in a video that can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/ElN5G4rFbw8
Partners agree that the market has grown substantially, saying it’s serving three to four times as many people from when it began in 2022. Neighbors often form long lines outside the Delavan-Grider Community Center, which hosts the market, before it starts each week.
“Although we advertised and there were flyers, I really feel like it was just simply people in the neighborhood and in the community sharing their experience. This is what increased the foot traffic here,” said Candace Moppins, Executive Director of the Delavan-Grider Community Center. “When I was asking people, how did they find out about it, they were saying their friend or they saw the clip on television about KeyBank and the farmers market.”
“I feel like this year we really made our mark,” said Alison DeHonney with Buffalo GoGreen, the market’s main produce supplier. “The first year people are like ‘oh this is new, ’ the second year ‘not sure if it's going to come back.’ Now I feel like we're entrenched at the Delavan Grider Community Center, people know what to expect.”
In the three years the market has been helping fill the food desert void in East Buffalo, KeyBank Buffalo Corporate Responsibility Officer Chiwuike “Chi-Chi” Owunwanne has driven the partnership with Buffalo GoGreen and the Delavan-Grider Community Center that helped this effort thrive.
“In order to tackle challenging issues, it’s easier when you have good partners. And good partnership requires being able to establish a rapport and a relationship,” said Owunwanne. “I think we've just done that really, really well amongst the three of us as it pertains to trying to solve for something that probably was not on anybody else's radar.”
“There was never going to be a market there in that part of the city,” said DeHonney. It’s not where people would typically find a farmers market, although it is very needed and has been very well received. The idea that people on a certain economic scale don't want, need or understand what good food and healthy options and good produce is, the market proves that none of that is true.”
As partners begin planning for the market’s fourth season, they’re focused on deepening connections with the community, including working to improve awareness and access for nearby residents, and connecting with the neighborhood’s growing immigrant community.
“There are families that are living in and thriving in this neighborhood. We need to continue to cultivate it,” said Moppins. “I think that as we continue to see a surge of new Americans coming in that we will incorporate more produce that they use to cook with that gives other folks an opportunity to learn how to cook those things. I know Allison and I have talked about sharing or providing recipe cards for the various produce. So we're going to put those things together for year four but I just think that it's going to be bigger and better.”
