Farmers market moves to Saturday mornings

The Maricopa Farmers Market is re-launching Saturday with a new day, new time and more parking for patrons.

The market will still be held at the Stagestop Marketplace, but is now on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to noon.

But the revitalized local market will be facing a bit of competition this weekend from a community garage sale hosted by the Arizona Storage Company on 40675 W. Honeycutt Road.

The community garage sale is a way for the facility to showcase its 10-foot by 10-foot, air-conditioned storage units and will be 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

There is a $5 fee to set up shop in one of the units and all the fees collected will be donated to F.O.R. Maricopa, the local food bank.

“We’ve never done anything like this before,” said Wendy Marshall, the storage facility’s manager. “I thought it was a good way to bring people out here.”

Local vendors, some of whom regularly set up shop at the Maricopa Farmer’s Market, will be on hand selling their wares as well.

“It’s indoors, it’s air-conditioned, and it’s for charity,” said Barbara Buckner, a Maricopa resident who sells her hand-made jewelry at community events. “With me, anything for charity I always do.”

The community garage sale, however, will only be in town this one weekend, while with some community support, the Maricopa Farmers Market will be here to stay.

Bee Bullock, who organized the first market in January, said the day moved to Saturday “by popular demand.”

The market has been struggling with a rocky start since its inception. First, because it was new, there weren’t many people. That led to a decrease in vendors, which in turn fueled the lack of people.

But eventually, more people began to regularly attend and the vendors followed suit.

“I was ready to throw in the towel,” Bullock said. “But then I showed up to market and said, ‘Wow, there’s 12 vendors today.’”

During the following weeks, that number doubled, and then doubled again.

“So I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a legitimate market. This is working,’” Bullock said.

“But when we got to 26 vendors and 38 vendors it became a problem,” she said, explaining that since the location was a hub of businesses and church services on Sundays, parking soon became scarce or flat-out unavailable.