PORT ANGELES — Call it a pocket market, a satellite stand, whatever your fancy — or just bite into the summer flavors available at a new location.
Fresh produce, from berries to carrots and sugar snap peas to salad mix, has debuted at Olympic Medical Center, 939 Caroline St., in a miniature farmers market.
The display opened Tuesday afternoon to an eager crowd, said Graciela Harris, OMC’s director of nutrition services. Kia Armstrong, the orchestrator from Nash’s Organic Produce of Dungeness, “is doing a good business,” Harris added.
OMC is an ideal spot for a pocket market, Harris believes, since it has several hundred employees circulating through at midafternoon.
“We want to encourage folks to adopt a healthier lifestyle,” Harris said. “We want to make it as easy as possible, and this is one way to move in the right direction.”
Both Harris and Armstrong said they’re looking at a monthlong trial period for the mini-market.
“We’re not expecting huge revenue,” Armstrong added. Instead, she wants to introduce people to growers across the North Olympic Peninsula, so her OMC stand features fruit and vegetables from Nash’s, from Karyn Williams’ Red Dog Farm in Chimacum and from Christie and Kelly Johnston’s farm east of Port Angeles.
The market is set up just outside Season’s Cafe on the hospital’s east side from 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays. And since the patient-care shift changes over at 3 p.m. and the office staff heads home around 4:30, a flock of potential produce buyers will flow past, Harris said.
With more than 1,000 people working at OMC’s Port Angeles hospital and at the Sequim center on North Fifth Avenue, she said adding a Sequim produce outlet is a possibility. “Our Sequim employees are very interested,” Harris said, “so we do have a market for it.”
She’ll wait a few weeks, though, to see how the Port Angeles operation goes before expanding it.
The OMC mini-market is an offshoot of the abundant farmers markets across the North Olympic Peninsula. The Port Angeles editions are from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays at the Gateway Transit Center at Front and Lincoln streets and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays at Fourth and Peabody streets.
In Port Townsend the farmers markets are open from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays on Polk Street between Lawrence and Clay and from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Tyler and Lawrence streets. And in Sequim, the Open Aire Market features more than 50 vendors from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays on West Cedar Street.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
