In a city where it’s difficult to find fresh produce, the Downtown Sanger Farmers’ Market is filling the void by bringing local producers to Sanger.
Now in its second year, the market will have about 40 vendors during its opening weekend and was recently approved to accept SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.
Opening weekend is this Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The market is at Stephen Baker Field next to Linda Tutt High School, on Wood Street near the Interstate 35 frontage road.
The market will be open on the first and third weekends of the month through mid-December.
Amber Whitworth-Spigner, manager and executive director, said the market was created last year to give locals easier access to fresh produce and to support vendors selling their goods.
A highway expansion created a food desert after the Super Save grocery store was demolished in 2021.
The city is expected to double in size, with the number of residential units expected to increase from the current 3,438 to nearly 6,500.
“It’s actually kind of like a food desert — you have to go to Denton or Gainesville to get food,” Whitworth-Spigner said.
She said getting SNAP into the market was a long process.
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — SNAP for short — provides food benefits to low-income families to supplement their grocery budget so they can afford nutritious food.
Whitworth-Spigner said the market was approved to accept SNAP in January. To get approved, they had to prove they had different kinds of vendors — including dairy, meat and produce.
This year’s market has double the number of vendors from last year’s opening weekend.
Whitworth-Spigner and her husband, Garrett Spigner, who is a farmer/rancher and is on the Denton County Farm Bureau board, travel around the county. They know how much time and effort farmers and ranchers put into their goods.
On a trip to Puerto Rico last year, the couple spoke with various farmers and ranchers. They saw how hard farming had become for people and saw the passion they had.
It inspired them to showcase agricultural education lessons for the community at the market.
The market’s YouTube page has several videos featuring Sanger farming and more.
“I don’t think that people really understand where their food comes from — how much work goes into growing this food,” Whitworth-Spigner said. “There’s a lot of food waste that happens. And people just don’t really understand how hard it is for farmers to grow their food.”