State Responds to request from Economic Development Commission

By Robert Pam

The Connecticut Department of Agriculture has awarded Norfolk’s Economic Development Commission (EDC), a grant of $8,500 to support a farmers market in Norfolk over the next two summers.

The EDC’s grant proposal called for staging markets over 15 consecutive Saturdays each season, starting the third weekend in June and running to the end of September.

Sue Frisch, writer of grant proposal to aid famers markets over two years.

The coming season is being planned by the EDC’s farmers market subcommittee. It is made up of Sue Frisch, who researched and wrote the grant request, Libby Borden, Shelley Harms, Cecily Mermann and Francesca Turchiano.

Frisch and Borden, who is chairman of the EDC, organized the launch of a successful trial market last September on town land and Route 44 and Shepard Road. The event featured 12 local vendors, most of whom sold out, and drew over 200 customers.

The grant will be spent primarily on advertising and other forms of promotion “We will use the grant to make sure everybody here knows about it,” says Frisch, “and to bring more people to Norfolk, to shop not only in the farmers market, but at our other businesses. Last year, Mizza’s had 30 extra customers during the trial market, and we hope that will happen every time.”

Still to be settled is the location for the market. Last year’s trial run was staged in the area where the town eventually intends to put up a new building to house the ambulance and the office of the resident state trooper. The building site, at the corner of Route 44 and Shepard Road, has been approved by the selectmen and Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z). But there are still many additional steps to be taken in the official approval process. Subcommittee members are hoping to reach an agreement with the ambulance squad that will allow them to use part of the Route 44 and Shepard Road property. An alternative would be the village green.

There is broad backing for the plan from a variety of sources. The grant proposal included letters of support from the first selectmen of Norfolk and Colebrook, State Representative George Wilber (D), the Coalition for Sound Growth, the Connecticut Farmland Trust and the district conservationist of the US Department of Agriculture.

Photo by Lloyd Garrison.