EDITOR’S NOTE: Corrects the amount the Port Angeles Farmers Market has to fundraise each year and the organization’s annual operating budget.
PORT ANGELES — The Wednesday edition of the Port Angeles Farmers Market, which in the past has opened mid-June and run through September, won’t open at all this year.
The farmers market board voted May 19 to discontinue it.
The farmers market will continue to operate at The Gateway transit pavilion at 123 E. Front St., from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays year-round.
Discontinuing the Wednesday market “was a very difficult decision to come to,” said Manager Cynthia Warne.
“The board has been mulling over making this decision for a long time,” she added.
“We tried for a number of years to increase interest and sales on Wednesdays, but we just weren’t able to bring it into the black.”
The decline of the Wednesday market has been an issue for years, she said.
Before its close, the Wednesday market had four or five farmers, several prepared food vendors and a couple of others. She estimated the Wednesday market had a total of 10 vendors.
The farmers market organization was paying for an assistant to help vendors set up.
“It didn’t make sense,” she said.
The market has to fundraise between $15,000 and $20,000 a year, she said. The operating budget is about $58,000 a year.
“The board thought it best to focus our attention on growing and improving the Saturday market, building it into an even bigger and better downtown event,” Warne said.
The Saturday market has a growing income, she said, and that will allow the organization to use marketing and advertising.
The market has not had advertising since the end of a 2012 grant to support it, she added.
The board might reopen the Wednesday market again someday, said Warne, “but for now, we’re going to let it go.”
For more information, contact Warne at 360-460-0361.
