What many who visit Pasadena’s Certified Farmers’ Markets at Villa Parke Center and Victory Park may not realize is that behind the delicious produce that makes up the healthiest portions of their daily diets are “unsung heroes” — growers, packers, drivers and sellers — who make possible this veritable symphony of farm-to-table fare.
That’s how Gretchen Sterling, who has been managing the popular farmers’ markets since their openings in the early 1980s, views this small army of workers, many of whom are longtime friends who have helped create these outdoor fresh food festivals week in and week out over the past four decades.
Especially now, in near post-pandemic Pasadena, where COVID-19 infections are dwindling and coronavirus-related deaths are becoming increasingly rare, people seem to be hungrier than ever for fresh, nutritious, farm-grown food. And spurring on this interest is 1. Pasadena Certified Farmers’ Markets have successfully adjusted to often onerous but necessary anti-COVID protocols, never closing during the crisis, and 2. The two local markets offer a fun but also logical alternative to the highly processed and commercialized indoor supermarket scene, and basically always have.
“You do not have to go into a store. You get to be outside,” Sterling said about the most popular attractions of the two markets. Plus, she said, “You still get to relate with your favorite farmers,” who are among what she regards as the market’s “unsung heroes.”
“This week is our 41st anniversary, and right down the way we have one farmer who is fourth generation,” Sterling observed during an interview Tuesday at the Villa Parke Center market at North Garfield Avenue and Villa Street.
“These folks are part of our community and they come here every week, rain or shine, making sure people have good stuff to eat,” Sterling said.
Sterling, whose family moved to Pasadena in 1960, was one of the founders of the markets, with the one at Villa Parke Center being the first, opening in 1980, and the Victory Park market on Paloma Street, near Pasadena High School, opening in 1984.
“I was here when we started our own nonprofit in partnership with the City Recreation Department, with the land as the city’s portion, and we started out with 70 farmers. We are now down to 10 farmers,” due to coronavirus impacts, Sterling explained.
The Villa Parke Center market was started with a grant from the Interfaith Hunger Coalition to help farmers because they were not allowed to sell produce from their own property until 1977, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. At that time, regulations required farmers to properly pack size, and label their fresh fruits, nuts, and vegetables in standard containers to transport and sell in markets anywhere other than the farm site.
“And that is why they come,” Sterling said of the crew of farmers she manages. Some are from the Central Valley, still others from as far away as Palm Springs, “so this is what you get. This is what you see in the fields.”
Throughout the pandemic, both markets remained open but made adjustments, such as requiring customers to wear masks, maintaining social distancing, limiting the number of people allowed in at a given time, and offering hand sanitizer. It has exacted a price from the two markets, but they both have persevered, as have the friendships developed between customers and sellers.
“This is where people would go where they have personal relationships with the farmers, and the farmers know how the children are doing, especially if you have a market that’s been around this long,” Sterling said.
“We are on our third- and starting on fourth-generation farmers. Some of my earliest customers now have grandchildren,” Sterling said.
In fact, children are the reason why the market was started in this neighborhood: It was the lowest economic district in the city with the highest density of elementary school children, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
Although the Villa Parke Center area is known as a pretty tough neighborhood, there have never been major problems associated with crime at the Villa Street market, mainly because local mothers who shopped there each week put their collective foot down.
“This is it,” Sterling recalled of what some of the women told their children.
“You want to eat? Fine. If you don’t want to eat, you can go do whatever you want to do, but if you are going to be here and want to eat, you leave this market alone,” she said.
But it is the farmers who have made things work as well as they have over the years, she said.
“Everyone who is working is a hometown hero, but these farmers who leave home at two in the morning, they get here, they set up, rain or shine, year-round. They don’t leave the market (which closes at 12:30 p.m.) until 2 o’clock in the afternoon. …These folks are dedicated and committed. This is their livelihood, but they come rain or shine.”
In fact, Sterling said the Villa Parke market is now the county’s longest operating certified farmers’ market, “So we are now the grandfather of farmers’ markets,” Sterling said, “and I’m still here.”
Given Sterling grew up in this neighborhood, and still lives nearby, “this market will stay open as long as I’ve got breath,” she said.
The Pasadena Certified Farmers’ Market located at the corner of North Garfield Avenue and East Villa Street, is open from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. every Tuesday.
The Pasadena Certified Farmers’ Market at Victory Park is located in the 2900 block of North Sierra Madre Boulevard, at the corner of Paloma Avenue, in front of Pasadena High School. They are open from 8 a.m. to noon Saturdays.
