Despite this being my second year working at the farmers market this year was just as wonderful as the summer before. This year I worked on the website same as before, but the thing that was different, that made this summer so wonderful, was the time I had with all the vendors. There isn’t anything specific that I could say is different from last year, but somehow the market feels friendlier than the years before.
This summer I did spend some time working on the website, but not as in-depth as the year before. The work I did on the website was minimal, mainly updating outdated information and fixing broken links. The main project on the website was placing out lost and found items up on the website, as well as an email for people to contact the market regarding the items they lost. Unfortunately, nobody has claimed an item through the website, but hopefully, this will help the market return lost items.
Since I didn’t spend all my time working on the website, I was able to help sort the vendor’s folders and tax forms. This was a process that I had to go through every week, sorting the vendors who were coming for the week and those who were not, as well as making folders for new vendors. On the tax forms, I filled out who had paid the application fee, and who had already paid the site fee to avoid confusion. My purpose for helping with this to help the end of the day checkout process go smoother and with less stress. My main challenge for this is vendors were constantly dropping markets or joining last minutes, so trying to keep up with the constant changes was a bit of a struggle but I dd have time at the market to create new folders for vendors I didn’t know were coming.
I only worked on the June newsletter since the other intern wanted to work on them and I had enough projects to keep myself entertained. During the summer I also went to a networking event for the farmers market. The market has a subscription with a Visit Colorado office, and this event’s purpose was to show how we could use our subscription to further our advertising as well as how its currently being used. I personally did not work on this subscription, but I reported everything I learned back to our market manager, so she’d be able to work on expanding our reach.
This market feels so different from last year, it’s the same market but I feel as though I have been able to create better relationships with all of the vendors, getting to know them all a little better, while I take time out of the market to go and talk to those selling at our market. I also felt more comfortable working at the market this year, and I believe that this internship has helped me to grow as an individual.
