"Back by popular demand" is a fitting slogan for the Glenwood Community Farmers Market, which will reopen May 9 - under new management and new rules - thanks to a grassroots movement.
After it was closed in November 2013 by the Howard County Farmers Global Market Association Board because of a lack of growth during its 10 years of operation, western Howard residents who sorely missed their local venue made their voices heard.
"People were popping into local farms and into the library last year to ask what happened to it," said Heidi Gaasch, a spokeswoman for the comeback effort
"Many of us out here felt the void," said Gaasch, a lobbyist who lives in Glenwood. "We aren't Columbia; we're 25 minutes away."
The Glenwood Branch Library has fielded so many questions about the farmers market's absence that Jane Conlon, a library instructor and research specialist, decided to contact local farmers on the community's behalf. She ended up mounting a library display this month about the market's return.
"We feel [that bringing the market back] is the right thing to do and that it will be a positive step for the community," she said. "We want everyone to win - our farmers and our consumers."
The independent market will return on Saturdays to the parking lot between the Glenwood Branch Library and the Gary J. Arthur Community Center, located off Route 97, and will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. through Oct. 31.
Kathy Zimmerman, agriculture marketing specialist with the Howard County Economic Development Authority and one of two non-voting members on the association board, said she's glad to see Glenwood residents coming together to bring the market back.
"If that's what the community wants and they support it, then I'm all for it," she said.
Organizers, including representatives of Breezy Willow Farm, Greenway Farm and Wheeler Farm, say they will still emphasize the sale of local products, but are tweaking the rules a bit in order to offer products that appeal to a broader customer base.
This time around the independent market will not follow the association board's requirement that county farms be given first preference or adhere to the board's producers-only policy, in which producers are defined as "farmers who sell what they grow or produce on land they own or rent," Gaasch said.
Making these two changes will give more flexibility to the Glenwood market organizers, who happen to all be producers, she said.
"We support the whole concept of knowing where your food comes from and getting to know your local farmers and this will still be a great place to do that," she said, "but we're open to hosting other farmers and vendors outside the county."
Glenwood market will include farms with earlier or later growing seasons, as well as those that grow or make products that aren't available from county farms, she said.
Farms joining the Glenwood organizers will be Appalachian Acres; Adams County, Pa.; Bowling Green Farm; Sykesville; and Lewis Orchard, Cavestown, which is near Hagerstown. Not all farms will appear at the market at all times, depending on the seasonality of their crops, Gaasch said.
The market will also offer products such as baked goods from the Great Harvest Bread Co.; honey, herbs and teas from Harmonious Earth; Samu-Su Soaps; and hummus from the Wild Pea. Other vendors are in the works.
RJ Caulder, owner of Breezy Willow Farm in West Friendship and a Glenwood organizer, is especially excited that the market is returning since she started it in 2004.
"Because we're in a rural area it didn't grow as much as some people thought it should," she said. "But we made enough money and we were satisfied."
After Glenwood closed, Caulder helped open the Ellicott City Old Town Market last year in the hope that some of the Glenwood market farms would take part "since they had no home."
"We've been talking about reopening it since it closed," she said. "We've gotten a lot of support from the community and we're really excited about it."
News of the market's return has traveled fast in recent weeks by word-of-mouth and on a Facebook page called Western Howard County Shares. The Glenwood market started its own social media site on April 15.
Preston Pairo said he and his wife, Moira, can walk through the woods from their Cooksville home to visit the market.
"I am really pleased to hear it is starting up again," said Pairo, an attorney and author who had inquired at the library several times about the market's disappearance. "You can see the faces of the people who are growing the food and hear their stories. It makes for an outstanding venue."
Ann Bonner, a West Friendship resident and a graphic designer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, volunteered to design a logo for the Glenwood market to show her support of the community's efforts to bring the market back. It features sunflowers and vine-ripened tomatoes.
Zimmerman said the nine-member association board decided to close Glenwood because "we didn't feel it had grown sufficiently in support from the community."
The East Columbia Library Market, which was closed at the same time as Glenwood, reopened last year outside of the board's umbrella.
The remaining sites overseen by the board are located at Howard County General Hospital, Maple Lawn, the Miller Branch Library and Oakland Mills Village Center.
Zimmerman said that operating too many sites "can also make it more challenging for farmers, who must work to get to all the different markets in order to make the same profit" as when there were fewer locations, an observation she culled in part from observing statewide trends.
"In the last seven years the number of markets in the state has tripled from 50 to 150, but the number of customers is not growing anywhere near that rate," she said.
Gaasch said Glenwood market's organizers are confident they can succeed with the right combination of offerings.
"We don't want to grow too big, too fast," she said. "But we figure if we build it - and residents want it - they will come."
For more information, visit the Glenwood Community Farmers Market page on Facebook.