Saturdays through October

By Don Rush

It’s been a few years in the planning, but this Saturday the wait ends. At 9 a.m., a special ribbon-cutting dedication ceremony recognizing the former Oxford Township Parks and Recreation Director Ron Davis and his family will commence.

“This was by far a more complex project than I expected,” current director Phil Castonia said. “There are state and county licenses I didn’t know about which some vendors need. But, now we’re excited for this to be open.”

Castonia said to help set up a first rate farmers market, the parks hired Tim Davids as the Market Manager and also sought the assistance of Jeremy Brown. “Tim successfully ran the South Lyons market for years and Jeremy did the Oakland County farmers market.”

The Davis Family Farmers Market is located at Seymour Lake Township Park, 2795 Seymour Lake Rd. The market was first proposed by Ron Davis before he retired after 27 years last summer. Located just past the tennis courts in the park, the market has a 40 by 100 foot, open-air pavilion. The estimated cost of the building is $297,000, $100,000 of that will come from a grant from Oakland County.

“It was amazing how many people wanted to be vendors here,” Castonia said. “It was quite a job Tim did of contacting and finding the quality vendors we wanted. Our goal is to have local grown. We are not looking for people who are reselling. The closer we can get to home and the more variety we can get is what we’re looking for.”

“It has taken a lot of planning,” Davids agreed. “We will have a complete vendor setup, with 20 vendors. We had to make sure everyone was prepared and had the proper licenses. We have a lot of folks who are vendors for the first time and we do have some seasoned vendors who have chosen Oxford Township to be their primary market. We’re looking forward to the community coming out and supporting the market.”

While there will not be a lot of locally grown produce now, some of the products available they said will be maple syrup, honey, coffee, meats, poultry and flowers. “We’re working on getting a local vendor who grows micro-greens,” Castonia said.

“We want to offer fresh, local products for the citizens of Oxford,” Davids said. “Around June, we will be getting the fresh grown crops – fruits and vegetables — when they start coming in.”

Castonia also said the parks and recreation market will not be competing with the Thursday night open air market run by the Oxford Village Downtown Development Authority. “We’re trying to make sure we don’t have overlapping vendors.

The Davis Family Market will be open Saturdays, rain or shine, from 9 a.m to 2 p.m. through Saturday, October 28. For more information email Davids at FarmersMarket@OxParkRec.org.