Community Market Update
By Anne Naumann
Thanks to everyone who attended our Community Market event on May 7. It was a wonderful turnout by both vendors and shoppers. A HUGE thank you goes out to HPCA resident Amrit Kaur, who organized this event with the support of a City of Calgary Neighbourhood Grant and our community association. She wanted to find a way to bring the community together, where people could share their creativity, ideas, and culture and share a meal at the same time. She did an amazing job! We received LOTS of positive feedback from both vendors and shoppers who attended.
Amrit fielded inquiries to participate from 39 vendors, but as per the plan, vendors who were residents of Highland Park were prioritized. In the end, given we thought it might need to be indoors due to weather (it was), the event was to a total of 24 vendors to ensure we could accommodate each one with their own table. Of the 24 vendors, 14 were from Highland Park, and ten were from other communities.
Some of the amazing crafts for sale included Carol’s hand-knitted gloves and barbie doll dresses (she also ended up taking orders for pet jackets), all shapes and sizes of creative birdhouse designs, paintings and other wall art, wood and acrylic charcuterie boards, garden lanterns, upcycled clothing, Alphonso’s mother’s handmade quilts, Mischief and Love’s handblown multi-coloured glass ornaments and pottery, and various jewelry vendors including Froggy Designs’ handmade jewelry and hair clips that they were selling to raise funds to attend an overseas ringette tournament.
For many vendors, this was the first craft market they had attended in person since the start of the pandemic, and for some young vendors, it was their first ever. As Amrit explained, the vendors “had the opportunity to interact, engage, answer questions and practice their skills.”
Food trucks also were organized to attend the suppertime event, and we had three different trucks attend. I personally enjoyed a platter of perogies and sausage, although the butter chicken poutine and the mini-donuts caught my eye. Maybe I’ll get that next time.
We also had an offer of a musician to come play his bagpipes as free entertainment during the event, which was a nice addition. All in all, it was a great event that ran very smoothly.
Keep your eyes and ears peeled for the next Community Market, as this one was meant to be the first in a series of three.