By OLIVIA BERGMEIER
Lead Reporter - Salina Post
The parking lot that City Lights Stage calls home had a new look on Saturday — tents and tables filled that space with about a dozen vendors for the season's first Farm and Art Market Downtown.
"People are smiling, people are doing exactly what we wanted this market to be, they're talking to one another and being a community," said Salina Downtown, Inc. (SDI) Executive Director Leslie Bishop. "This parking lot is meant to look like this on a Saturday morning."
Familiar businesses like AJ Honey Farms, LLC, Shroom-Mates and Bowden Beef participated in the first market. Still, Bishop said there will be about 20 to 22 vendors in the next few weekends as produce ripens.
Wind River Farm, a local goat farm owned by Angela Price from Falun, joined in selling various goat milk soaps and balms to customers.
"It doesn't look like any first market that I've seen — there's a lot more traffic, a lot more vendors for the first ever, and so I expect good things from this market," Price said. "Salina Downtown showed me a few things of what their plans are for this area, and I'm very impressed and looking forward to sticking around."
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The Farm and Art Market Downtown aims to provide a space for all local Salina vendors to join in and sell their goods, art and other handmade items. More than 500 people stopped by the market on Saturday. Vendors sold-out of produce and craft goods within hours of the market's grand opening.
The market begins at 7:30 a.m. every Saturday during the summer and ends at noon at the City Lights Stage parking lot in downtown Salina.