As a college student, providing yourself with groceries can come with uncertainty. The ASG hosts a Farmers Market open to all, aiming to help students in need. 

“We actually get zero funding,” Locke said. “ We have a partnership with Second Harvest. We now have essentially doubled the farmers markets. Only one market is AG-controlled, as we subcontract the Student Union Building once a month to Second Harvest for their own farmers market.  It’s nice that even though we don’t get any funding it’s more of a partnership. They have been able to load us up with three to four and maybe even sometimes five pallets of food to then give out to students. If we have leftovers, it allows us to even include faculty and staff that do face food insecurity to participate as well.”

SFCC offers a Skitch’s Food Pantry to currently enrolled students, but with this comes limitations. 

Lexii Locke, president of the Associated Student Government, takes great pride in these markets. 

“The main goal behind our school farmers markets is to give students who face food insecurity more than three times a quarter that they can obtain it through our food pantry as we unfortunately have restrictions,” Locke said. “Some of their families grow throughout the year. So having the ability to not only get an extra sense of food and a bunch of different things, like we got boxes of tomatillos and it gave people the option to make a bunch of stuff.”

Each student attending SFCC faces their own barriers in life that can distract their focus from studying. Ellie Shoop, a student who benefits from the event, shared her experience.

 “The farmers market is very impactful. It takes the stress away of going to the grocery store. Especially the physical part of going and shopping on your own. The farmers market has helped take those obstacles away,” Shoop said.

For meaningful events to take place more than once on our campus, it is important to recognize the efforts and cooperation between SFCC and Second Harvest, an organization that works to fight hunger in Eastern Washington. 

Brianna Karasha, SFFC’s ASG secretary, helps set up stands and distribute food. 

 “We offer fresh foods, canned foods, salads, breads, meal kits, and random snacks,” Karasha said. “There are always long lines of students waiting to get food and any student can volunteer to help set up and even grab a box of food before the line.”

The future of these markets will allow students to live affordably and thrive as they continue their education pathways.

“These farmers markets give students their sense of normalcy back, especially if they’re facing food insecurity,” said Locke. “But even those that aren’t facing food insecurity, it gives them a chance to kind of rally behind their student government on how we’re trying to support their student life the best we can as fellow students ourselves.”