MARKET SHARE

Vendors expand downtown

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — The Northside Farmers’ Market is open for business downtown selling fresh fruit, vegetables, canned items, coffee and baked goods.

The Northside Farmers’ Market opened in 2003 on Elm Street near Wick Park on the city’s North Side. The market is open Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon between July and September, when the summer growing season ends.

Now it’s also selling the same items downtown on the northwest corner of Market and West Federal streets from 3 to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through September.

“There are far too few places in Youngstown to buy good, fresh fruit and vegetables,” Mayor Jay Williams said Tuesday at the market. “I look forward to not always having to go to the grocery store” for those items.

On Tuesday, there were nine fruit and vegetable vendors and four baking goods vendors downtown.

The market’s goals, said Jim Converse, its manager, are to:

UMake fresh and nutritious foods more easily accessible to Youngstown families.

USupport the work of local growers and bakers by expanding their market and customer base.

UBuild the community by bringing together people of different races, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds.

UShare cultural heritages and favorite recipes for healthful farm-fresh foods.

“Our hope is to keep growing the market,” Converse said.