marketumbrella.org, sponsor of the popular Crescent City Farmers Market in New Orleans, brings farmers and consumers together in a vibrant, energetic public market that creates opportunities and a sense of community for farmers, fishers and other vendors; helps to preserve local culture, and boosts the regional economy. The nonprofit organization will receive $225,000 each year for the next two years to strengthen market opportunities for farmers of color and their communities and to support an innovative new program of “crop circles” as a public market-based philanthropy. The Federation of Southern Cooperatives and the Mississippi Association of Cooperatives, partners in the initiative, also will share in the funding.
Begun 12 years ago, at Loyola University New Orleans' Twomey Center for Peace through Justice, the work of marketumbrella.org began as a single “grow what you sell” farmers market in New Orleans. In partnership with the Federation of Southern Cooperatives and the Mississippi Association of Cooperatives, marketumbrella.org now is working to increase direct marketing opportunities and forge new urban/rural relationships for minority, limited resource farmers and fishers, including presence at the Crescent City Farmers Market (CCFM). The market is currently held each week, in two locations, with an annual economic impact of $6.8 million. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, the market operated in four locations, four days each week, with an annual impact of $12 million. The CCFM draws vendors from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
By facilitating the entry of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives and the Mississippi Association of Cooperatives into institutional sales, such as farm-to-school markets in New Orleans, marketumbrella.org will help to establish new alternative economic opportunities and strengthen the local market presence of rural food producers.
The establishment of crop circles provides an alternative, sustainable model of grassroots philanthropy based on the tradition of giving circles. A percentage of each vendor's income from CCFM sales is pooled to help community members through small grants. An innovative market money system, utilizing wooden tokens called cash crops, eliminates the need for vendors to accept credit cards and incur surcharges. A percentage of cash crop sales also contributes to funding the crop circles program.
marketumbrella.org , still headquartered at Loyola University New Orleans' Twomey Center for Peace through Justice, initiates and promotes the ecology of local economies through the four M's: managing markets, mobilizing citizens, mentoring leaders, and modeling best practices. The organization promotes the simple, traditional, and enjoyable world of public markets because it believes that in these ancient mechanisms lie the seeds for a brighter, greener future. (www.marketumbrella.org)
The Mississippi Association of Cooperatives (MAC) was established in 1972 as an affiliate of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund (1967). A nonprofit organization, MAC serves farmers, their families and communities in increasing their livelihood security and improving quality of life. Building from a tradition steeped in the Civil Rights Movement, MAC provides technical assistance and advocates for the needs of its members in the areas of cooperative development and networking, sustainable production, marketing and community food security. MAC is the parent organization of the Mississippi Center for Cooperative Development. (www.mississippiassociation.coop)
The Federation of Southern Cooperatives is a service, resource and advocacy association for a constituency of 25,000 low income families organized into over 100 cooperatives in rural communities across the South. The membership is primarily African-American but also includes White, Chicano and Native American members. An outgrowth of the Civil Rights Movement, the Federation was chartered in 1967 by 22 low-income cooperatives to help African Americans and poor people to produce a livable income and save their way of life. (www.federationsoutherncoop.com) |
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