Open Air Market comes to downtown Moline

Now this is positive. People with produce to sell getting a place to sell it and people who love fresh fruits and veggies having a place to find some. Produce markets are fun and interesting and I hope this becomes well patronized and popular. Not sure why a produce market needs a corporate sponsor... but it will hopefully add to the benefit.

But perhaps the best thing about it is that it's about the first idea for something that is accessible to everyone, even if you don't have a large hunk of disposable income. I mean, it's not a trendy boutique or even a high-end restaurant, and as far as can be told, it doesn't have anything to do with John Deere. That's a step in the right direction.

Fresh produce and handmade crafts will soon be available in downtown Moline, when Moline Centre Partners launch a farmer's market on June 14.

The farmers' market, which will be called the Trinity Mid-week Market in Moline, will be from 3 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays in Parking Lot U, next to the Bierstube on 15th Street between 4th and 5th avenues.

Trinity Regional Health System is sponsoring the market and will have mini-health fairs, promoting healthy eating and living there.

Moline Centre Partners executive director Lysa Hegland said the organization has been planning for the market since last fall, as a way to meet the needs of downtown residents and employees and draw more people to the area now known as Moline Centre.

She said they picked Wednesday as the day to sell locally grown produce, plants and handmade crafts because they didn't want to compete with other farmers' markets within the Quad-Cities, and they wanted to have something unique.