From Market Member to Board Member: Why OFMA Matters to Me
5 Minute Read
What makes OFMA membership valuable? We asked one of our board members Avery Reynolds, a Portland metro market manager, to share their perspective.
In their reflections below, Avery talks about why they chose to serve on OFMA’s Board, how the association has supported their market leadership, and why they believe investing in Oregon's farmers market community benefits us all.
“My first touch point with farmers markets was when I was managing a farm 10 years ago. We had an on-campus farm stand, and in our backyard was the Ashland Farmers Market.
When I decided to step away from farming, I ended up managing food pantries, and then kind of just wanted to take the next step in my career, so I started a graduate program for nonprofit management. I needed a part-time job, applied at Portland Farmers Markets, and that was my first official experience managing a market.”
“Food access work in general was where I had always been headed. I loved the opportunity to continue to work with farmers and have a larger impact on their experiences in the world. And I loved when I stepped into farmers market work how engaging it was. In so many different ways, it played to a lot of skills that I had acquired and didn't necessarily know could be a part of a job.
When I was in the farmers markets, all those pieces just kind of fell into place: the social aspect of it, the knowledge and experience I had working as a farmer, but then also like, the weird random little things that I learned as a kid. It's a little bit wild to me to like, wake up in the morning and have to fix a plumbing issue with our sinks, and then the very next moment I'm having this really deep and engaging conversation with one of our vendors and helping them find success, and then the very next moment I'm solving another weird little disruption. Something about that just felt like it really fit me.”
“Managing a farmers market is such a public job that it can feel really challenging to find good solutions that will work. We have some control over our space, but at the end of the day, we don't have a ton of control over the public or public space. It takes a lot of creativity to find solutions that don't jeopardize other shoppers' experience or a business's experience. Other resources I've turned to sometimes are not the most helpful because they don't really get that piece of it.
My first experience going to a market manager meetup was when I was having a particularly challenging moment in my work. This is something that I know a lot of other market managers struggle with: having disruptors come into our space to intentionally elicit a strong response from people. And it hit really close to home for me, some of the things these disruptive people were saying and doing.”
“I remember going to the meetups and having other people there to express very openly and honestly what was going on, how it was impacting me, and also having a really supportive space to solicit feedback and ask others what they were doing, how they have addressed this issue, what did and didn't work for them. The emotional and problem-solving support in that space felt really impactful to me in that moment, and continues to be one of the biggest driving factors in my desire to wanna share some of that with others as well.
Even though I've been in this work now for six years, I know that my skills and my knowledge for how this work can be done is continuous. I really value educational opportunities, and I feel really passionate about sharing the knowledge that I have, and being humbled by the knowledge that other people have. I think it’s really crucial to invest in the types of relationships that are going to progress each other and have mutual benefits.”
“I have the unique privilege of working for a larger market organization; I always have someone in my back pocket that I can speak to and bounce ideas off of, but I know that other markets don't have that within their own organization, within their own market. I'm really passionate about the work that OFMA can do to provide that to every market in the state.”