Ana Maria, me, Kayt, and Cleo with our “Crop Cycle”, a bicycle marketing cart in front of Ponce City Farmers Market. All photos credit to Jenna Shea Photography/Photojournalism.
I was the Director of Marketing for Atlanta non-profit Community Farmers Markets between 2018 and 2021. I tackled marketing materials, social media, advertising, merchandising, rebranding and marketing strategy for the organization. In early 2020, Ana Maria Páramo and I collaborated on a brand redesign. Each weekly farmers market has its own set of printed materials as well as annual events that required design materials. Community Farmers Markets also hosted annual fundraising events, such as the Fruit Tree Sale, the Red Clay Soiree and Lady Locavores, which required branding, marketing, and designed materials. During the pandemic, Community Farmers Markets reorganized temporarily to offer online sales and weekly pick-ups in the communities otherwise served by farmers markets - Ana Maria and I also created branding for this new “Shop CFM”. I managed the Community Farmers Markets website on Wordpress, advertised with Soofa and social media, and developed newsletters and materials using Mail Chimp and Adobe Creative Suite.
The Community Farmers Markets Branding Guides were finalized in March of 2020 as a collaboration between Stephanie Luke and Ana Maria Páramo. This guide document was designed and compiled by Ana Maria, who also designed each of the logos.
For the 2018-2019 growing seasons, I managed the Ponce City Farmers Market, a market of the non-profit Community Farmers Markets. Ponce City Farmers Market is a seasonal weekly market on the BeltLine rail trail. I coordinated and managed all staff, vendors, local businesses and organizations, including Georgia Tech, Big Brother Big Sister, Jamestown, and Mailchimp. As manager I also curated weekly newsletters and planned outreach activations such as an exclusive catered farm-to-table dinner and a mini farmers market popup.
Outreach at MailChimp offices, where I coordinated with farmers and vendors and then organized. set up, and hosted a full mini farmers market for MailChimp staff.
Opening day at Ponce City Farmers Market, 2018. I’m ribbon cutting a ribbon of pasta thanks to Bellina Allimentari.
Flats Dinner, an exclusive gourmet dinner I organized and hosted to showcase the food and talents of the farmers market community. Featuring the incredible local chef Julia Schneider, sous/dessert chef Sarah Dodge, and located in the borrowed Root Baking Co.
Crop Cycle mini farmers market at the Home Depot Backyard at the new Mercedes Benz stadium in Atlanta.
Crop Cycle
I managed the launch of our Crop Cycle project, a new farmers market on wheels. Ana Maria Páramo and I designed the cart to be a mobile marketing vehicle: ideal for riding around on the Atlanta BeltLine “rail trail” and popping up at community events. The Crop Cycle hosts chef demos, advertising tabling, and keeps fruit and veggies cool in its unique refridgerated space. Ana Maria and I also designed and hand-painted its sides.
ATLANTA MAGAZINE CALLED IT “THE CUTEST WAY TO PROMOTE ATLANTA FARMERS MARKETS” (JUNE 2019).
Lady Locavores
This annual event celebrates International Womens’ Day in March with a large sampling event featuring local female and femme-identifying chefs and mixologists. In 2021, we reimagined the event with a series of online classes for the community, including cocktail making, flower arranging, a tea ceremony, and taco demonstration. I designed all the marketing materials and personally hosted the Zoom series.
pandemic graphics
Hosting public events during a pandemic immediately offered a challenge in terms of communicating rules and boundaries, for the sake of keeping our staff, vendors, and customers safe. I designed signage to communicate our rules, which changed throughout 2020 and 2021.
shopcfmatl
In early 2020 in Atlanta, there were food shortages and fear of going into grocery stores; we felt it was our responsibility to support food access at all costs. This online farmers market was an enormous undertaking, from coordinating with each of the vendors, to communicating with customers, to website inventory. We communicated with our customers almost entirely digitally, due to the pandemic and uncertainty of virus transmission. The photo by Jenna Shea shows me filling orders at Ponce City Market, but most of the order filling was completed by other dedicated staff and generous volunteers. Eventually we operated simultaneously with our farmers markets, and finally closed the shop to focus back on farmers markets as usual.
okra at east atlanta farmers market
This annual fall event celebrates the growing and cooking of this favorite Southern crop. Each year offers different chef interpretations and fun at-market activities. I organized and designed the Okra Recipe E-book in 2020, which features okra recipes from talented local chefs. Click through to be taken to a blog post containing the e-book. (I also designed and made the okra “costumes”!)