By Abrar Al-Heeti
The Land Connection will host a new farmers’ market in downtown Champaign on Tuesdays from May 5-Oct. 27.
The market will run from 4-7 p.m. each Tuesday. The proposed location is in central downtown but has not been finalized.
The Land Connection is a local nonprofit that began with the purpose of preserving farmland but has since expanded to starting farms.
Magdalena Casper-Shipp, market manager for The Land Connection, said the market is something the organization has discussed for a long time.
“Our director really wanted to have a market in downtown Champaign on a weeknight where you could go and do basically all your food shopping,” Casper-Shipp said. “It’s great to go to the Urbana market, but by the middle of the week, you’ve probably run out of something.”
She said The Land Connection is working with Urbana’s Market at the Square to bring many of the same vendors to the Champaign market.
Casper-Shipp said the market will also feature vendors who are graduates from the organization’s Central Illinois Farm Beginnings class, which teaches students how to start their farms as an entrepreneurial business. The Land Connection hopes the smaller market will be a more suitable setting for other small vendors, too.
The organization plans to have kids’ activities at the market to make it a fun, engaging time for the whole family.
“We just want to have that place where people can come together and do their food shopping and then probably go out downtown or just enjoy being in downtown Champaign in the summer,” Casper-Shipp said.