Come for the Kale

Stay for the community

by JESSICA CIENCIN HENRIQUEZ Photos by HELENA PASQUARELLA

Ojai’s Thursday Market offers a welcome social hour after more than a year of quiet

Maria Sandoval rides to the market every Thursday with her daughters. They park their bikes by the Chaparral High School gate and the girls race into the courtyard to collect their $2 tokens upon entry — a little reward for customers who leave their cars at home. This incentive started as a way to minimize Thursday traffic and keep Ojai green: $2 for riding a bicycle, $3 for riding the trolley, $4 for riding the bus. They kick off their shoes and take their tokens straight to the Frecker Farms stall for a basket of sweet strawberries to share.

“This is something we look forward to every week,” says Sandoval, “It’s our time to reconnect with friends, stock up on fresh food, and celebrate this community we’ve been socially distancing from for so long. These farmers aren’t strangers, they’re our neighbors.”

When the board behind the Ojai Community Farmers’ Market began envisioning this project — years before the pandemic had entered the picture — they could have never predicted the perfection of their timing. “The market brings all of these people together at a moment when we’re so hungry for familiar faces,” says Julie Gerard, OCFM board member and Ojai resident. “There are five of us on the board and while we come each from different backgrounds and our stories are not the same, we share a love for farmers, farming, good healthy foods, and community, and our goal was to create a space that combines all of these things here in Ojai.”

Rob Russell of Ojai is all smiles as his six-monthold daughter, Evelyn, tries her very first strawberry

The Community Market is a nonprofit, brought to life by grants, donations, and local generosity. During the fundraising process, Ojai local and pro-surfer Dan Malloy auctioned off a surfboard to help cover the cost of weekly musicians that perform at the market. “If that’s not Ojai, I don’t know what is,” laughs Gerard.

As the Thursday market finds its footing, it has begun to build a reputation as a part midweek wind-down, part midweek stock-up. The festival-like atmosphere invites customers to grab artisanal foods like the mushroom margherita pie from Wanderers Pizza, lay out a blanket on the grass, and bop to live music lined up weekly by Vaughn Montgomery, the community music coordinator we can thank for the bluegrass, folk, and rock and roll that soundtracks the evening.

This laid-back, weekly energetic exchange is a part of small-town life that people have missed over the past many months since the pandemic sent us all into hiding. It almost feels as if the enforced distance was imagined when you saunter and stop along a line of stalls, watching children chase one another with bare feet and summer-stained fingers while their parents linger nearby, lost in conversation. The scene isn’t crowded with regular grab-and-go customers but instead peppered with visitors, locals, friends, and neighbors alike opting to stay awhile, ask questions, and get to know the people behind the products they’re buying.

“Our goal was to complement the already established Sunday market by providing a space for our local vendors to sell straight to the community they live in. It was important to make sure our small farms remained viable and that the people living in Ojai had awareness of and access to the food being grown here — why shouldn’t every community be self-sustaining?” says Gerard.

Madeline Mikkelson lives and works at Mama Walnut, a 20-acre farm located in Upper Ojai, which grows citrus, olives, and walnuts

Vendors seem to be just as giddy to show up at this weekly social hour as their patrons. “The outpouring of support we’ve felt from our community has been inspiring,” says Emilee Dziuk-Barnett, co-founder of GARA Skincare, “The opening ceremony was filled with laughter and tears as we gathered under the mother tree for a blessing from

Chumash elder, Julie Tumamait-Stenslie. The moment she cut the garlic ribbon, something new was born. You could feel it in the air and in the weeks since, a sense of community in our often chaotic and divided world.” Emilee takes time to speak with each person passing her stall, she doesn’t rush them but instead encourages questions, allows them to sample balms and hydrosols as she details how they’re sourced.

“We work directly with local cultivators for all of our sages, florals, and woods. We also source many of our ingredients for our other skincare formulations locally. We use Ojai Olive Oil as a base for all of our topical salves and balms. We also source our calendula, helichrysum, chamomile, nettle, and other ingredients from local farms such as Earthtrine Farm and Shear Rock Farms.”

The hyper-local approach these farmers, makers, and bakers are taking is a Community Market requirement they are all happy to meet. “Why buy flour from a farm 200 miles away to bake your bread when your neighbor down the road has milled more than enough to go around?” Gerard asks, emphasizing the variety of products readily available right here in the valley.

Children have the freedom to run and play while their parents listen to live music, visit with other parents, or shop for local organic produce

“A lot of these young farmers are coming in and taking over properties that have been stripped. They have been over-farmed, laden with pesticides, and they are regenerating the land with animal rotations, without pesticides, to get certified organic. This community is full of people who are desperate to

Mama Walnut Farm, a local citrus farm, is one vendor who is utilizing farming maneuvers that promote the longevity of the land. “We are using permaculture design and regenerative practices like rotational animal grazing, rainwater harvesting, and native plant restoration to repair a once conventional orchard,” says Natalie Rodrino, who along with her partner, grows citrus, olive oil, and walnuts on a 20-acre plot in Upper Ojai. Each week they showcase their harvest at the market, their excitement grows.

“Before Thursdays, there was no direct contact with our customers, we simply sold through the CSA. Now we have people coming back each week sharing their recipes with us, telling us they’ve never tasted grapefruit so good. We also have a bit of a trade market here, so our neighbors will bring us a bag of onions and swap for a basket of our citrus.”

The Thursday market is a direct reflection of what the people of this community value: ingenuity, creativity, and generosity.

“It was important for us to make accessibility a priority here; we wanted everyone to feel welcome, to feel invited in and cared for,” says Gerard, “no matter where they come from.” There is a set of strict guidelines to ensure that they continue to be a market for the community, by the community. When you enter

Organic, hand crafted soaps from Violet’s Pink Thrift stand

the courtyard, you’ll see that the signage is in English as well as Spanish, a simple gesture to accommodate the growing Hispanic community here in Ojai. There are educational booths set up for children and adults alike, to encourage conversations about California-specific topics — from foraging to fire safety.

One of the more critical ways the market continues to accomplish their mission to maintain inclusivity is by participating in the CalFresh-EBT and WIC Market Match program, which enables people to use their CalFresh and WIC funds while stretching how far they go. “If you’re given $30 a week for food and you come to our market, you will get $60 to spend at any stall in the market that sells fresh fruits, vegetables, fresh-cut herbs, or edible plant starts,” explains Gerard.

Jacob Lennon, left, and Dale Cumnins prepare pizzas for the mobile woodfired pizza oven brought by Wanderers Pizza.

There are over fifty vendors to choose from. Their fresh produce prices are fair and customers walk away feeling good about what they’ve spent and feeling great about supporting smaller-scale businesses. “Access to fresh, organic produce shouldn’t be a luxury, and the more we can minimize the view that this level of health is only within reach to some, the more this community stands to benefit,” says Gerard.

The variety of vendors ranges from edible goods like eggs, fish, meat, cheese, honey, bread, fruits, and vegetables, to items like CBD-infused cosmetics, plant-based clothing, handmade ceramics, goat milk soap, and locally sourced wooden home goods.

As vendors pack up their stalls, load up their bikes and bed trucks to head back home, it’s clear that the Ojai Community Market has accomplished exactly what it set out to do: It has created a unique, inviting space to meet the social, educational, and nutritional needs of our ever-growing community — and they’ve managed to throw in just enough Ojai magic to keep people coming back.

by JESSICA CIENCIN HENRIQUEZ