Amenia farmers market planned for May

AMENIA — Traveling Route 22 on Friday afternoons this summer, one might catch a glimpse of a new attraction in the parking lot of the Amenia Elementary School building. Resident and farmer Rudy Eschbach is busy getting all the pieces in place for an Amenia Farmers Market, set to open in the next few months.

The Amenia Town Board has yet to officially purchase the school building from the Webutuck Central School District (offered for the tidy sum of $1), but the town is finishing up the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) process, reported Councilwoman Victoria Perotti. Both she and town Supervisor Wayne Euvrard hope that the building will be owned by the town in time for the opening of the farmers market, tentatively scheduled for May 21.

If for some reason the new Town Hall deal falls through, a back-up location for the farmers market will be the Indian Rock Schoolhouse building, located on the Maplebrook School campus off Mygatt Road. Euvrard also said that even if the town doesn’t own the building by the time that the farmers market is set to open, he felt confident Webutuck would be willing to give the market permission to use the property.

The Cornell Cooperative Extension recognizes 12 farmers markets in Dutchess County, including one in the hamlet of Wassaic that has been open for years. However, Tom Werner, who was present at the first Amenia Farmers Market meeting, held March 3 at Town Hall, explained that the Wassaic Farmers Market, due to increasing complications running the market, will not operate this summer. It is expected that the Wassaic vendors would likely relocate to the Amenia market.

There were only four attendees at the March 3 meeting: Eschbach, Werner, Perotti and farmer Sophie Meili, who with her husband, Craig, operates Meili Farm.

But the Amenia Farmers Market has a northern ally on its side. The North East Community Center (NECC), which oversees the successful Millerton Farmers Market, has been an invaluable asset, Eschbach said, and is providing the kind of assistance that should start Amenia off on the right track for its first year in operation.

NECC Executive Director Jenny Hansell has offered the services of several volunteers from the organization’s teen job program. If there are too many students in the program to utilize everyone during Millerton’s Saturday market, Hansell will be sending teens down to assist the up-and-coming Amenia market, free-of-charge. The teens will be available to help vendors set up and break down stands and serve customers, and will also be spending time on the individual farms.

“It’s really a win-win situation for everyone,� said Eschbach.

Hansell said that she was happy to see Amenia jumping on the farmers market bandwagon and because the markets promote healthy living and local food shopping in general, the more the merrier.

“Already we have more people wanting to join than we have room for,� she said during a phone interview about the Millerton market. “And I’d hate to see a farmer not have a farmers market to be in. So I do think there are enough farmers to go around, and as the public is more educated about the benefits [of eating healthy and locally] there will be enough customers to go around as well.�

There are several farmers markets in the area operating on Saturdays, including ones in Millerton, Millbrook, Kent, Conn., and Great Barrington, Mass. Eschbach explained that the decision to move the market to Friday afternoons would free vendors who usually attend other Saturday markets and often set up stands at multiple sites. Fridays would also eliminate any sense of taking business away from another operation and take advantage of traffic coming up from New York City or the Wassaic Metro-North train station on Friday afternoons. The 2 to 6 p.m. operating hours tap into peak traffic hours, explained Eschbach, who is a bus driver for the Webutuck Central School District.

The Amenia Farmers Market will follow many of the same guidelines as the Millerton market. Food vendors are not required to be certified organic, but those who aren’t need to clearly outline their growing practices to consumers. Priority for vendor space will be given to farmers within a 35-mile radius of Amenia.

All prepared and processed food products for sale should be produced by the vendor from scratch and should include predominantly local ingredients. Craft vendors will be considered on a case-by-case basis and must contain some locally grown or sourced materials.

Even though the wheels are in motion for a late May opening, a few minor details still need to be sorted out. Before the farmers market is made official, the market will need to have a sponsor, Eschbach said. Perotti will be looking into grant opportunities with Mike Hagerty, the town’s grant writer. Eschbach said that the main expenses will likely be the cost of signage and media advertising.

There will probably be a maximum of 15 vendor spaces available. Five vendors have already shown interest in participating, and anyone interested in securing one or more of the remaining spots can contact Eschbach at 845-373-9432 for more information or an application, which can be e-mailed on request.

At least one more meeting will be held before the farmers market opens; that meeting is tentatively scheduled for April 14 at 7 p.m. As the opening date draws nearer, look for more coverage of the Amenia Farmers Market in The Millerton News.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less