Today is the two year anniversary of the opening of the Oakland Farmer's Market at Kaiser Permanente - an all organic farmer's market held in the parking lot of the Oakland Kaiser. This market was the brainchild of Dr. Preston Maring who realized that a hospital location with thousands of employees a day was the perfect location to host a farmer's market. Bring fresh food to where the people are ... and see what happens.
I had the opportunity to see Dr. Maring speak yesterday at the Great Valley Center Conference, and his story is truly inspiring. He saw an opportunity and took it. Now, two years later, there are approximately 20 farmer's markets being held at Kaiser Permanente's nationwide (including two in Hawaii), with an estimated 30 open by the end of the year. Not only this, but Kaiser has announced that it will work toward bringing sustainable and local foods into their hospitals ... that would be an extraordinary step in the right direction.
The thing that I love about this is that it wasn't some big committee that originally decided that the entire institution would move in the direction of a campaign promoting fresh and local food - it was just a guy who wanted a farmer's market in his parking lot. Now he is travelling and attending conferences and talking to other large institutions about making the same changes in their structure.
Dr. Maring is a fantastic example of the fact that one person really can affect change in this world. He reports that most of the people attending the Kaiser farmer's markets have never shopped at farmer's markets in their life. And he is just as concerned with the farmers -- he pays a lot of attention to giving the farmers a lot of "bang for their buck" and is really proud that the farmers report much success at these markets.
It's a small market (8 booths, I believe) but if you are nearby and have the opportunity, please stop by and tell the market folks happy birthday!
Friday Fresh Farmer's Market
9 am - 2 pm, Fridays
Oakland Medical Center
3033 MacArthur Blvd
Secondly, a big happy birthday #1 to Sam at Becks and Posh. Anyone who knows me has heard me talk about what a great blogger Sam is ... she is a huge addition to the San Francisco food blogging community, and has an entertaining and informative blog to boot. She recently started the fantastic Food Blog S'cool which is giving food bloggers a forum to discuss technical and general issues relative to blogging.
