Amazing Saturday!!!
I want to report that over 200 people stopped by to shop at the Wild Ramp Market today between 10a.m. and 4p.m!!! Heritage Station had a special event today with music and crafts for sale and perhaps some people visited the Wild Ramp that did not know before they arrived about all the local fresh farm food that is now available. We overheard a lot of excited comments and there were many good questions about the farms and how the market operates.
We are still operating as a “soft opening” because we have two things not quite “right” yet.
1. We still do not have our Certificate of Occupancy from the City. A couple more inspections still have to be completed and then we should be ready to move inside!! Until then we will continue to set up tables just outside for all produce and value added products and inform people about meats in the freezers and eggs in the cooler.
2. Our software we plan to use for checking out shopper’s purchases is still being loaded. There is a LOT of data entry involved in order to make sure Farmer A gets credit for you buying his tomatoes instead of Farmer B. Until then we will continue doing it the old fashioned way with paper and pen and calculators. This slows down the check-out situation and we apologize and ask for patience, promising it will be better SOON!
The blog presents information about the farms that are participating.
Please go to http://www.wildramp.wordpress.com and subscribe. If you only read what shows up on Facebook you will miss all the wonderful photos. Information about the farming practice is presented along with a bit of history about how the farmer got to this point in their life and what they are raising. 
Volunteer oppportunities
You do not need to become a member to shop at the Wild Ramp, but if you have become a Friend of the Market, your membership provides for a number of perks that nonmembers do not have. See the list on the Market website to see the benefits. If you opted to become a member at the $50 level, you agreed to provide volunteer service at the rate of 1 hour a month. This can be served as 1 hour for each of the next 12 months, or it can be provided in three 4-hour segments the next few weeks. There is no requirement to spread out the service you agreed to. Anything above and beyond that commitment would be highly appreciated and respected. I’ve mentioned before that there is a pretty small group of people who have gotten this market together and off the ground. Some relief would be greatly appreciated. *G*
But the important thing today is that you came out and we sold out of eggs and much of the produce that had been delivered fresh on Friday evening!!!
See you again when the Wild Ramp opens on Wednesday at 11a.m.
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Hours are Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 11-7, Saturday from 10-4.
Applications for Friends of the Wild Ramp can be found and printed from http://www.wildramp.org.
wildramp 
Sounds great! Keep up the good work!
it was so busy almost all the time and everyone was very excited to see what was being offered.
Congratulations ! If I were near you I’d be one of your biggest supporters!!!
I did not work the market as my husband and I were participating in the crafts show, but we positioned our table right there so we could watch and I did wander over often….when do I NOT talk. LOL It was amazing energy
Sounds like a great day!
It will be a great market!!
I just watched a BBC program called Jamie Oliver’s kitchen revolution filmed in Huntington WV. I was so stunned watching this. It took place in an elementary school cafeteria. The show was about trying to change the prepared food diet of school children to that of home made. I kept thinking of all the farmers markets trying to do the same thing.
You can watch it here; http://www.bbcamerica.com/food-revolution/guide/season-1/episode-1/
Oh yeah…We had an interesting time with Jamie Oliver here, but the tv shows were not that bad. He was at the high school also so my son had some personal observation and one of the guys who was a thrower on the track team was one of the kids for the special dinner and he had an interesting interaction with Jamie also. Probably the worse thing I can say is that it was very one sided and definitely NOT reality. For example, the weekend we had over 1000 runners in a 5K, Jamie was back in England, giving interviews about how lazy we all were. BUT the reality is that the school system, like many across the country, has been following the food guidelines by the government to receive government food.
How I love to wander the green markets, produce is fresh and tastes so much better.