Farmer’s market comes to York

Lexee Hoene & Brittany Goldfield-Rodrigues
Editorial Interns
In the Bear Pit at York University Central Square, the smell of fresh food on display Nov. 24 was hard to miss.
The first farmer’s market at York made its debut that day, offering students a variety of organic goods.
Harvest Fest comes together as a collaboration between four students in the psychology of creativity class at York and student club Regenesis.
“Regenesis at York has been working together to handle the administrative and the farmer’s market project to try and get it forward because really that is the holy grail of what students have been wanting,” said Darnel Harris, co-president of Regenesis and a fifth-year history student at York’s Glendon campus.
The seven farmers who came to sell their goods were met with great reception as students purchased goods such as honey, cookies and cinnamon buns.

Harvest Fest began as a project given to four psychology students to see if they could find a way to motivate and initiate ideas in society.
Cathy Sliwka, along with classmates Jesse Shiff, Masha Koroleva, and Liyah Shalmiev looked online for more information about farmers’
markets and contacted farmers who were looking to sell their produce. Those that replied became a part of the much anticipated event.
Sliwka has learned a lot from the assignment.
“We figured we could promote this and use our creativity, and come up with the farmers’ market to promote eating healthy and local farmers and the importance to do so,” said Sliwka.
The goal for the four students is to educate York about “the importance of buying locally” and make it a lasting trend among the student body.
The organizers of the event hope to continue Harvest Fest and make it an year-round occasion for students.
“This is really to do two things: prove the viability of the project, prove that this is what students will want and use on a regular basis. Also, to show that we can take this to a larger scale to have a York famers’ market all year round,” said Harris.