Peppers are among the fresh produce for sale during Okra Fest on Saturday, July 2, 2022, at the Fightingville Fresh Market in Lafayette. The first annual celebration of the vegetable featured an okra cooking competition, music, and vendors.
Camilla Correa carries fresh herbs to her vendrotable during Okra Fest on July 2, 2022, at the Fightingville Fresh Market in Lafayette. The first annual celebration of the vegetable featured an okra cooking competition, music, and vendors.
Nicole Johnson places price tags on her fresh produce at the Fightingville Fresh Community Farmers Market on Tuesday, May 3, 2022, in Lafayette. The market, located at the corner of Simcoe and Madson streets in the Fightingville neighborhood, is open on Tuesdays from 3pm-5pm and Saturdays rom noon-3pm
Fresh ginger is looked over at the Fightingville Fresh Community Farmers Market on Tuesday, May 3, 2022, in Lafayette. The market, located at the corner of Simcoe and Madson streets in the Fightingville neighborhood, is open on Tuesdays from 3pm-5pm and Saturdays rom noon-3pm
Treyson Lively, 2, learns to milk Ellie, a dairy cow from Cajun Milk Cows, during a cow milking demonstration on Saturday, June 12, 2021, at the Fightingville Fresh Farmers market in Lafayette.
Nicole Johnson places price tags on her fresh produce at the Fightingville Fresh Community Farmers Market on Tuesday, May 3, 2022, in Lafayette. The market, located at the corner of Simcoe and Madson streets in the Fightingville neighborhood, is open on Tuesdays from 3pm-5pm and Saturdays rom noon-3pm
Nicole Johnson is a local entrepreneur with a stake in businesses like CPR 2 Geaux, L4S Farms, Fightingville Fresh Market and The Fresh Growers’ Collective. She’s passionate about entrepreneurship, farming, self-sustainability and connecting with like-minded individuals to uplift her community. Her focus on local food systems, promoting food as medicine and supporting local businesses is a driving force in her life.
In 2019, Johnson met Kimberly Culotta and Kevin Ardoin during the LSU AgCenter’s Grow Louisiana Program. In an effort to support other beginner farmers and benefit the community, they created the Fightingville Fresh Market in Acadiana, which sells everything from blackberries, green beans, squash and potatoes to kombucha, luffa sponges and organic sourdough.
How does a fresh market foster and build community in a place?
First of all, it promotes hope. In an area where all the grocery stores are shutting down, having something that offers locally grown produce and products is important to our community. It inspires people.
Not only with the market, but the community garden space has promoted entrepreneurship in our neighborhood. We have a very low vendor fee — we charge 10% of sales. We also offer a consignment option where one doesn’t even have to stay. You might have a stay-at-home mom who makes a product but can’t afford to come and stay the three hours at the market. However, she can make and sell her product here at the market table.
It’s just encouraging this entrepreneurial ecosystem of local producers. It’s also inspired people to start growing on their own.
Fresh ginger is looked over at the Fightingville Fresh Community Farmers Market on Tuesday, May 3, 2022, in Lafayette. The market, located at the corner of Simcoe and Madson streets in the Fightingville neighborhood, is open on Tuesdays from 3pm-5pm and Saturdays rom noon-3pm
When and where does the market happen?
We’re located at 315 W. Simcoe, Lafayette, between the blocks of Madison and Pierce. Market days are 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesdays and 1 to 4 p.m. Saturdays. We also have Garden Day for people who are interested in gardening. In partnership with Junior League of Lafayette, we’ve started a worm farm for composting. We have one worm that will compost Styrofoam.
Backyard Sapphire offers a glass recycling service for people to come during market hours. We have another organization that has a drop-off box for people to donate period products, diapers and nonperishable items for single mothers. We partner with Riverside Church, which comes every first Sunday of the month to stream their 11 a.m. service at the market. After service, they have a meal for people.
Camilla Correa carries fresh herbs to her vendrotable during Okra Fest on July 2, 2022, at the Fightingville Fresh Market in Lafayette. The first annual celebration of the vegetable featured an okra cooking competition, music, and vendors.
Can you tell us more about the vendors at the market?
Mr. Robert is a local from the neighborhood who would come to the market and visit. Maybe the fourth time I saw him, he was like, “I made this hot sauce, and I grow all kind of peppers. My daughter and I bottle up this hot sauce.”
He brought his hot sauce, and we started selling it. Now, he has fallen sick, so we haven’t been working with him lately. Still, people would come in and say, “Where’s Mr. Robert’s hot sauce?”
He even started working with another person in the neighborhood who helped him get bottles and labels together. The market is just creating that community around entrepreneurship, people who wanted to help and see him succeed. It is a really beautiful thing to experience at our market — a community that supports itself.
Treyson Lively, 2, learns to milk Ellie, a dairy cow from Cajun Milk Cows, during a cow milking demonstration on Saturday, June 12, 2021, at the Fightingville Fresh Farmers market in Lafayette.
That is important in a community that is a food desert, that is high impoverished, to create some sustainability. Our market definitely aids in creating some sustainability in our neighborhood.
There is often a misconception that eating healthy has to be expensive. How is the fresh market disproving that?
We are big on promoting people to grow their own food — that is the least expensive way. COVID taught us that our global food system is broken, us depending on food that is flew in from different countries.
Growing your own food creates sustainability when you can just walk in the backyard and pick your food. I’m picking blackberries as we speak. That is me being able to sustain for myself and my family. I’m looking at lettuce, some tomatoes that are coming in, a big tree full of figs that will be ready in a couple of months and a bay leaf tree that is over 8 feet tall. I’m selling all of these things, which creates sustainability not just for us but for a whole community.
Peppers are among the fresh produce for sale during Okra Fest on Saturday, July 2, 2022, at the Fightingville Fresh Market in Lafayette. The first annual celebration of the vegetable featured an okra cooking competition, music, and vendors.
The biggest way that we bust that myth is that we have free seed exchange and resources to help you learn how to grow this thing that you love, that’s too expensive in a store. We can show you how to grow it yourself.
We accept SNAP, and we also have a SNAP match program. When people use their food stamp card to shop at our market, they get 50% off. My farm, L4S Farms, grows turmeric, ginger and medicinal herbs. Yes, it is a high ticket item, but if people shop with food stamps, they pay half. It directly benefits not only the farmer, but we’re getting fresh nutritious food to people who need it.
We’re not just catering to farmers market goers who don’t have an issue with poverty or not having the cash to spend. We don’t just cater to that person, we cater to, really, everybody.
Visit Fightingville Fresh on Facebook for more information on market offerings, events and more.
Email Lauren Cheramie at lauren.cheramie@theadvocate.com.
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