Watford City has had a farmers market for many years, but this year they are looking to expand it with more vendors, live music, grilled foods for sale, and demonstrations. Over 20 vendors have submitted applications to sell their homegrown and/or hand made products. It starts this Thursday, July 21, and will run every Thursday from 5-7pm until sometime in September at the McKenzie County Heritage Park.
"We've had a pretty good buzz of excitement about this expanded market idea" says Daniel Stenberg "I think people have been looking for something fun and unique like this, so I'm hoping now that it is about to become a reality folks will come out to support it." In addition to baked goods, canned items, eggs, and garden produce, folks have signed up to sell their pottery, glasswork and other handmade items. Further, each week the Watford City Lions Club will be grilling food for sale, demonstrations will be conducted (anything from learning activities about soil to Ft Union fur traders) and different local musicians will be featured to keep the atmosphere fun and inviting.
"This is an exciting opportunity. I hope both the vendors and the customers realize that we will likely encounter a few hiccups as we get this running, and as everyone starts to figure out how this whole thing will work" says Stenberg.
In addition to being the Watford Market Manager, Stenberg is the director of the McKenzie County Heritage Park. He said the idea to move the market to the Heritage Park came when brainstorming ways to get more people to come experience the park. "We have a lot of great buildings and artifacts from our county's past, but sometimes it takes an event happening here to get people to actually come onto our park grounds. Once they get here, they are excited and a little bit surprised at how much history and cool things there are to see. So we are excited to be able to share our park in this unique way."
A whole team of folks has been working to make this a reality. Jessie Veeder and Rick Lyon are in charge of the live music; Sandy Rieker and Marcia Hellandsaas are in charge of demonstrations; Amanda Buchmann is in charge of the grounds; and Laura Sanford is in charge of marketing.
The Heritage Park board committed funds to help Watford Market get kicked off this year, and since then funds have been received from the Northwest North Dakota Community Foundation, Watford City Lodging Tax, the Roughrider Fund Community Enhancement Grant, McKenzie Electric Operation Roundup Grant and the North Dakota Farmers Market & Growers Association.
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