Limerick’s Farmers Market has been running every third Saturday in August since the event was revived in 2012. On August 17, most of vendors were located inside the Limerick Community Hall on a relatively cold summer’s day, although a few entrepreneurs had their tables set outside on the village’s main street.
According to the event’s organizer, Shannon Lethbridge, there were 23 different vendors selling produce, baking and other goods produced by home businesses in 2019. Operators came from various areas in the region, including Glentworth, Mankota and Assiniboia. Hutterites from the Ponteix Colony were also selling agricultural produce.
Although the public’s interest in running this community bazaar had declined for a number of years, Limerick’s Farmers Market had initially dated to the Neon Decade of the eighties. “Actually, the Limerick Market started in 1982. Originally, the whole half of Mainstreet was shut down,” Lethbridge said, describing the market in days past, when about 80 vendors participated.
Inside the hall, Val Fafard from Wood Mountain ran a bookstall filled with children’s books from Usborne Publishing. “This year’s pretty comparable to how most years are,” she said, also saying this was the third Limerick Farmer’s Market she’d been involved with.
In the outer corridor of the community building, Assiniboian farmer Wade Adamack was selling his homemade cone and extracted honey. “It’s been steady,” he responded when asked how successful his retail operations were on Limerick’s market day.
In the Limerick Community Hall, several businesses were retailing a variety of goods from the region. Brandy Weiterman from Kincaid had a stall displaying her homegrown garlic. Also, community interests were represented at the market, such as the Old Wives Watershed Association, who are interested in local conservation issues. The Gravelbourg-based organization assists farmers and ranchers to retrieve financial aid to advance the environmental sustainability and drought resiliency of their businesses.
