One new face, two memorial benches and hundreds of produce-friendly food coupons are among the new aspects of this year’s Lawrence Farmers Market.

The market is set to open at 6:30 a.m. Saturday in its usual place — a city parking lot in the 1000 block of Vermont Street. But the market will be different this year in several ways.

• A new form of currency will be circulating there. An estimated 288 Douglas County senior citizens are eligible for food coupons they can use to buy up to $30 in produce at the market starting June 1.

The program, funded mostly by federal tax money through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, cost $182,000 statewide.

The tickets will go to seniors who are eligible for other food-assistance programs. Douglas County Senior Services and Let’s Help Inc. will distribute the coupons to eligible seniors.

“I think it’s a real nice program because it will allow people to get fresh produce,” said Janet Ikenberry, community services manager for Douglas County Senior Services. “The problem, I think, for some of the folks will be, ‘How will they get there?'”

Ikenberry said she hoped to learn more about the program at a training session later this month in Topeka.

• On Memorial Day Weekend, vendors will dedicate two benches in honor of vendors who died in the past year: Mary Ellen Terry, who sold shiitake mushrooms, and produce grower Kathy Garrett.


Richard Bean, looks over a honeycomb from beehives on his farm south of Lawrence. Bean is one of the sellers at the Lawrence Farmers Market, which opens this Saturday.

Both vendors were known for being hospitable and pulling up a cooler anytime someone wanted to sit and talk, said vendor Barbara Clark, who raises sheep and grows produce on her farm north of Lawrence.

The dedication will be at 9 a.m. May 24.

The Lawrence Farmers Market opens the 2003 season this Saturday. It is open from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. each Saturday through the end of August. It’s open from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays through October.

• For the first time, the market has an employee whose only job is to make sure things run smoothly: market coordinator Emily Miller.

Miller, who previously raised organic edible-flower blossoms at a farm in Freedom, Calif., said one aspect of her job was to be a booster for locally-grown produce.

She said the average meal in America travels 1,500 miles from field to table.

“I think the food you get at the farmers market has more value,” she said.

Another part of Miller’s job is to resolve occasional conflicts that develop between vendors, for example, when one says another’s produce doesn’t come from Kansas.

• This is the first year the market is being run by a board of directors both elected by and made up of vendors. In the past, vendors served on an advisory panel that worked with the market’s sponsoring agency, Downtown Lawrence Inc.

Clark, the board’s secretary, said she hoped the board would give a more formal organization to the market.

The market is open from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. each Saturday through the end of August. It’s open from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays through October.