The Sunday Market held weekly at the Skeena Landing might seem like an extension of the popular Farmers Market, but it’s not.
The Sunday Market does provide an alternative venue for sellers to market their homemade goods, but the fees paid by the vendors go to the charitable organization that organizes the event.
The Sunday Market, although only in its second year, already hosts around 14 regular vendors providing baked goods, homemade jam and honey, and handmade jewelry and other crafts as well as live music.
The latest charity to take over the event in Kimmunity Angels – a charity formed in 2014 to provide funds to people in Terrace who are dealing with serious illness. Founder Donna Slavic explains that the name and the charity were formed to honour a friend, Kim, who's battling cancer, and was inspired by what she's gone through with her finances while being ill.
The Kimmunity Angels Society took over the Sunday Market at the beginning of June and currently have 10 volunteers to help organize the vendors and set up signage for the event. The $10 fee paid by the vendors goes towards the Kimmunity Angels fund.
Slavic is hoping to attract even more people and vendors to the market.
“We want it to be a big event, a place where families can go on a Sunday afternoon to hang out and enjoy themselves. We are hoping to get the word out there to get more foot traffic [and] a variety of [vendors],” Slavic explained.
Slavic said that she is really looking to make it a family friendly event and is scoping out potential supporters in the community to provide fun kids activities at the event.
Last year, Crime Stoppers organized the Sunday market, but they passed it over to the Terrace Hospice Society this year after they could not find enough volunteers to staff the event.
The market in May was then organized by the hospice society, but again a shortage of volunteers prompted them to pass on the project.
Diana Wood of the Terrace Hospice Society said that “things were just starting to pick up, people were starting to get to know that [the market] was there every Sunday” when they passed the project over to Kimmunity Angels.
“A lot of people wanted to carry on with what they were doing at the Farmers Market and [many people] also wanted to do something on a Sunday,” she explained of the early organization of the market this year. The Sunday Market is held 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. every Sunday at Skeena Landing between Terrace and Thornhill.