Transcript
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Welcome everybody to another episode of Connect the Knox.
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I'm your host Julia Hurley, connecting Knoxville to the nation.
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Today's guest is Charlotte Tolley.
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CEO of Nourish Knoxville, a not for profit organization connecting
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Knoxville with nourishing foods through farmers markets and donations.
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We want to get really into this, Charlotte, because this is something
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that is very interesting, especially in parts of a lot of communities
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that have food deserts and even Knoxville has a couple of those.
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So please introduce yourself and let people
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know exactly what is Nourish Knoxville.
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I'm Charlotte Tolley.
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Um, I helped found the Market Square Farmers
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Market in downtown Knoxville in 2004.
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So Nourish Knoxville is, grew out of that work.
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Working with local farmers and food producers, you know,
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peaches just don't ripen on Fridays, so there are a lot of
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other places that we work with beyond just farmer's market.
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Our non profit started in 2013, so we have been working in local food in the
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Knoxville area for over 20 years and are really not just farmers markets.
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While we operate Market Square and New Harvest Farmers Markets at this
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point, we also produce the East Tennessee Local Food Guide to help
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people find farmers markets or other local food sources near them.
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We also work with other farmers markets and direct selling
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farm sites to offer SNAP doubling, so accepting food stamps
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and doubling those dollars for fresh fruits and vegetables.
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We do a Kids Program and a Moves Program, which both incentivize people to
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come to the market and get dollars to spend on fresh fruits and vegetables.
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And then we also do a food recovery and donation program where we, you
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know, during peach season, sometimes there's a lot more peaches than can
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be sold at a market, we work with farmers to purchase those goods to go
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to communities in need who may not have a lot of access to fresh produce.
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That is a lot that you have taken on to build.
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It is a lot.
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Yeah, it sounds like you do quite a bit, and
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that's, it's an unbelievable undertaking.
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I did not know you started the Farmer's Market.
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I lived in downtown Knoxville for four
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years, and that was where I got all my food.
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Lived in a very small condo, so we either ate out every night with
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the very small handful of restaurants that were available back
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then, or we made our food from the farmer's market every weekend.
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So that's that's pretty amazing.
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Thank you for starting that because it has turned into one of
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the largest and most sought after farmer's markets in this area.
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That's huge.
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Yeah.
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Do me a favor and take us step-by-step through each of these programs because
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there's several of these I don't know anything about, and when people relocate
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here, this is one of the most listened to podcasts for new people moving in.
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I think that's very relevant information for them.
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So yeah, people know the MarketSquare Farmers Market now generally.
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If you are relocating in Knoxville, we've had multiple people come up to us and
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say like, "Oh, this is one of the reasons I felt like I can move to Knoxville."
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Like there's a vibrant downtown.
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I look at farmer's markets when I travel.
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You know, it means that there's like a maker scene and a food scene in a city.
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So of course we have our flagship market, which is on
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Saturdays, which is essentially year round at this point.
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We close for holidays, but we're downtown pretty much
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year round, but we also are there on Wednesdays in season.
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And we run the New Harvest Farmer's Market, which is in East Knoxville.
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We're not at all the only farmer's market in the area.
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Most towns have their own, so Maryville has a farmer's market, Oak Ridge
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has a farmer's market, you know, there's a Morgan County farmer's market.
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I know there's one in Farragut, and the Oak Ridge farmer's market's massive.
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And we accidentally came across that going to the Lavender
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Festival last year, and it backed up to the Oak Ridge Farmer's
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Market, and I thought, "This is almost as big as Knoxville's is."
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Yeah, and it's been running over 40 years, so the group that
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runs that market also operates one at Ebenezer Road in West
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Knoxville, and one in Clinton, so that's the same group.
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And if you are a farmer's market frequenter, you would
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see a lot of familiar faces if you go to these markets,
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because like I said, peaches don't just ripen on Friday.
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So you can't just have a Saturday morning market.
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There's a Tuesday market, a Wednesday market, Thursday market, Saturday market.
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And so we started in that world, but we do
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feel like we want to float all the boats.
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Like, we want, need our farmers to be successful.
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We want all of these farmers markets to survive and for these farmers to
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have multiple outlets, including restaurants and grocers and, you know, CSA
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programs or other ways that they would be selling their produce to folks.
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What is a CSA program?
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CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.
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So the idea is you give literal seed money to a farmer.
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So in the beginning of the season, they would say, you know, we
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would like 60 people to like buy a share of the farm, and you
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give upfront money so that they can purchase all those inputs,
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and then throughout the season, you get a share of that harvest.
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There's a lot of different models.
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There's some that are a meat CSA.
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There's some that have add-ons or are short
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seasons, and so we promote those as well.
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And so that's where we started the East Tennessee Local Food Guide.
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It's both online and in print where it's for direct selling farmers.
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So if you were to pick one up, you would see farms that you can
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call directly and find them at a farmer's market or on their farm.
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They also list restaurants or grocers and other
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farmers markets in the area in a 33 county region.
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This asset, where can you find this?
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You can go to the online version on our website.
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So, nourishknoxville.org, and you can enter
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search terms, so you can enter a county.
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So if you're in Morgan County, you can look for firms in Morgan County, or
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if you look at farmers markets in Morgan County, or if you're just like, I
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really want to be able to find this certain product, like who has local honey?
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That's something we asked out about a lot.
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You can put in honey and then you can look for things near you,
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groceries that carry it and be able to find those products.
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So the next one of our flagship programs, when food
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stamps went to an online card based system, that really
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cut out a lot of farmers from being able to accept those.
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So we, across Tennessee, helped other farmers markets as well
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accept SNAP through a script based system, which is a very technical
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term, but essentially people come to our centralized information
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booth and are able to swipe their card, take out however much
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they want, and in their own SNAP dollars and their benefits.
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And then we double those dollars up to 20 per day for
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fresh fruits and vegetables so that SNAP recipients
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are able to extend their food budget for healthy foods.
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Is that statewide?
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It is not currently statewide.
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There are other markets across the state who have programs.
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Ours is called Double Up Food Bucks.
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You heard it here first, we have a grant
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application in for a straight statewide program.
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Like we are working towards statewide.
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East Tennessee has a pretty strong program.
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From Chattanooga to Bristol, there's I think over
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30 sites now that are accepting SNAP and doubling.
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So we also do our kids program at our markets
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and a few partner markets across East Tennessee.
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So kids come to our booth, we get them to try a fresh
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fruit or vegetable, and they get five dollars to spend at
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the market on the fruits and vegetables of their choice.
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Clever!
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That's a great way to get kids to start eating fresh vegetables.
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I like that.
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Yeah, it's interesting, you know, introducing things to them, because
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of course, when you say like, "Oh, have you had a strawberry before?"
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Most of them have tried a strawberry, but your like, in season farmer's
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market strawberry is probably different than the one that you had in February.
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So even if it is something that kids are used to, they may have
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tried it before and not liked it because it wasn't as good.
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And so, yeah, and we've had a lot of feedback that, you know,
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kids are more likely to try when we're just casually giving
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it to them than their parent trying to force it upon them.
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And from parents saying like, "You need to do this for adults!
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My partner doesn't ever try my vegetables."
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I'm like, "You're welcome to try this raw okra."
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I love raw okra.
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I don't know if people have tried it before.
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So that sampling piece is a really big component of what we do.
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Honest to goodness, before you came on the podcast,
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I did not know anything about this program.
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So I am actually learning as if I were
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listening to this podcast and relocating here.
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And you've been here since 2004.
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Tell us, okay, so you've got the double up Food Bucks, you've
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got the Nourish Kids, and then what is the Nourish Moves?
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So that one is encouraging physical activity.
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We kind of started because there was a big
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trend in like the workplace wellness world.
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We were asked like, "Oh, could you start a farmer's market at our work site?
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Can you do this?"
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And we're like, you know what we did?
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Bring a farmer's market to a lot of work sites in downtown.
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We just need to do a better job about connecting to those wellness
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programs and encouraging people to get out of the office in
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the middle of the day, take a little walk, buy some produce.
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Started really that way.
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We do it at our New Harvest and our Wednesday Farmer's Market at every market.
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People can come pick up a pedometer and walk around and bring it back, and
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they get three dollars to spend on fresh fruits and vegetables at the market.
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Every Wednesday and every Thursday at New Harvest.
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Really neat.
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Okay, so Wednesdays, Thursdays, if you work downtown, Come get a pedometer.
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How many steps do they have to get in?
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We do not require a certain amount of steps.
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We are just encouraging you to get more steps than you were.
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We used to, like, have a threshold, but we
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really also wanted to be accessible to anyone.
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Our new harvest market is actually in East Knoxville
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by the Target, which is usually what we tell people.
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So it's in a county park, and it has a really lovely walking trail.
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We have a lot of kids that participate in that, and sometimes it's real hot.
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And kids are having a very tiny meltdown at four in the afternoon, and
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so we were like, you know what, let's just encourage people to come,
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you know, if you made it out and you tried it all, like, we're really
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proud of you, especially on those like, oh, it's 100 degrees outside,
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like, we're not going to make you walk a thousand steps or whatever.
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Yeah, like, please don't, actually.
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I understand.
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Okay, so I'm going to, my gosh, I don't even know.
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There's just so many things.
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Tell us about your not for profit.
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Tell us about how that's going.
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What do you need?
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How can Knoxville better support you?
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Tell me about everything you're trying to do and what you are doing.
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So, you know, we're still a pretty small non profit.
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We have a staff of six at this point.
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We run three events a week, basically, in season, with our farmers markets.
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And then, you know, we do all of these programs plus some
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others and some fundraisers and try to participate in as
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many community events as we can in this realm as well.
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So we are relatively young, but we're not that young anymore.
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It does take a lot of time.
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So we do rely really heavily on volunteers as well,
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especially for our Kids and our Moves Programs.
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So we have volunteer opportunities at our markets, especially
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Wednesday and Thursday, where we are just happy to have people come
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and help us do crowd counts, help the people with those programs.
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But like you said, you know, you weren't familiar with our organization.
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People know about the Market Square Farmers
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Market, but they don't know how it happens at all.
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Like a lot of people think it's city run, and obviously
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we have a really strong partnership with the city, but it
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is our non profit and we are not, it's not city funded.
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So I think a little bit of just raising the awareness about our organization
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and all of these other programs that we do to increase food access.
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Always helpful.
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And obviously money is appreciated.
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Give this woman some money.
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Money is always appreciated.
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We, you know, we have a donation program for our friends program.
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A lot of our funding come at this point comes from grant funding
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from the state for these nutrition incentive programs in particular,
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but we also rely on an individual donors and like foundations.
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Um, in the area.
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And we work really closely with other organizations to ensure
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that we have been able to serve more people with local food.
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And one of the things that we didn't talk about
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a lot yet was our Nourish Community Program.
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And that is the one where we purchase from
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farmers and then donate to other organizations.
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So we rely really heavily on other partners in the community
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that are serving the community their clients really well.
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We work with Beardsley Farm and Battlefield Farm and the
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United Way and Wesley House, Dream Center, so Pride Center.
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There's all these people doing really great work in
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the community, and we really have to work together.
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We all know that real estate is location, location, location.
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Our team at Just Homes Group has the true expertise,
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pairing buyers and sellers with the right opportunities.
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Whether you're looking to buy or sell a home right here
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in Knoxville, Lenoir City, Clinton, or Farragut, we have
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the expertise throughout every Knoxville surrounding area.
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Call Just Homes Group today.
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So our, our organization that I am part of is called
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Charity Chicks and we do a lot with Wesley House.
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I love that.
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I love that we have that in common.
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And that tells me we're on the right track with engaging in
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different aspects of the community for all of the right places.
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That's good to know.
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Now I know that you have some fundraisers throughout the year.
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We do.
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How can people get involved in that?
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Is it like a, uh, it's like a dinner?
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Is it a, well, tell me about these.
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So we have a couple things.
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Our longest running is called Winter Warmer, and it is a
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fundraising dinner, and no shade to any other fundraisers,
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but it's unlikely that you will have a chicken breast at ours.
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It is a more of a farm to table experience.
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So we do work with local- with all of our
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fundraisers, it is also still a part of our mission.
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And since we have a food-related mission, when we have
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a food fundraiser, we're trying to make sure that we're
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including local ingredients in those meals as well.
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And people are perhaps even able to learn a little something
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about a local farmer or a new product that they aren't used to.
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So Winter Warmer is in February.
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This year it'll be February 21st, 2025.
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And it's our 10th year.
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So we actually are moving to a bigger venue.
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We were at the Standard, which has housed us most
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of the time, and we're moving to the Mill Mine.
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So, it's still not a huge, we're like 225 people.
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It's a plated dinner.
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So, ticketed, obviously.
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We have sponsorship opportunities, and then we have a
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pretty amazing silent auction if I do say so myself.
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Mostly if you like food.
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There's a lot of really wonderful, like, one of a kind experiences as well.
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Just like, a cocktail class, or a dumpling making class, or
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like, you know, distillery tour, and that is both online.
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So even if you're not attending the event, you can bid on these like in home
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dinner with one of, you know, Knoxville's Blackberry Farm graduate chefs.
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Really wonderful.
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So yeah, we really enjoy that event.
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We're working on that one right now.
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We just finished, it's not really an event, we
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can call it an event, but we do Restaurant Week.
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So that one's pretty new.
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Last year was the 20th anniversary of our Market Square Farmer's Market.
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So, we started it then and really enjoyed doing it, and the
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restaurants we worked with gave us a lot of really great feedback.
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So essentially, we just ask the restaurants, cafes, bars, to
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make an item for their menu that includes local ingredients.
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So there's some that we work with that, no problem, they may
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feature something that always features a local ingredient,
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or they may make a special that they are featuring.
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And that week, a percentage of those sales go to our organization.
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So it's a really easy way to give back.
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You just have to go get a cocktail at Fly by Night.
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Pretty low, low barrier.
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So that's in August every year.
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So we just finished that one, and those are our main events.
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Otherwise, we do our appreciation event.
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So in October, we have our annual appreciation event for our donors,
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our market vendors, you know, those restaurants that participated
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in Restaurant Week, our sponsors, it's just people, volunteers,
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people who've given stuff to our organization over the year.
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We go to Strongstock Farm, which is in East Knox County.
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It's a beautiful, over 900 acre working farm.
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We have a cakewalk, delicious snacks, per usual, drinks.
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So basically, you're Donate to your organization.
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There's always going to be food and there's going to be great food.
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Yes.
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I love that.
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I love this.
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Add us to the list for February.
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I love that idea.
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And I want to connect you.
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I'm sure you already know the Chicken Librarian.
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Yeah.
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I'm familiar with her.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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I have her on my podcast.
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I guess it was a couple of months ago, and I've taken a few of her classes.
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I think that getting her to donate to your silent auction on
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one of her cheesemaking classes would probably be really cool.
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So I'll make that connection.
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Absolutely.
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Yes, we'll take it.
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Okay, so I want to make sure that I got this right.
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We do.
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Well, you do the whole, you do all the farmer's markets now.
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I'll give a book of all the farmer's markets,
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but you started the Knoxville farmer's market.
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Downtown Knoxville, which is the biggest one.
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It is huge.
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That's now on Wednesdays.
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It is huge, that farmer's market.
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I remember when it started, there was, I mean,
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there were farmers there, but it is massive.
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Your farmer's market is huge.
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I remember when Mark moved the Old City Java for the first time, I, because
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I get old, I used to get Old City Java every morning, every morning.
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That man, I probably bought a house from him at one point.
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That's how much money I gave that company.
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But I remember when he brought a food truck, his coffee truck, to
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do the hand poured coffee for the first time at the farmer's market.
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And I said, oh my gosh, you know, this was so long ago.
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I was like, Knoxville's gotten bougie.
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Honestly, part of the reason that they did that, I mean, Old City Jamba
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was already open in the Old City, but we literally could not get a cup
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of coffee at the opening time at 9 am, like in the Market Square area.
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There just wasn't anybody selling you coffee.
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And so we're like, we need a coffee vendor, like all of these
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vendors are showing up and being like, can I get coffee?
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And there was like Pete's maybe, but a lot
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of them didn't open until like 9 or whatever.
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So yeah, that was part of the reason we're like, can you
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just come up here and make us coffee in the morning, please?
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Yeah, it was, it was the best addition because it got us out of bed early.
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It got us to the farmer's market early.
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We could have breakfast.
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We could have coffee.
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We actually went earlier and spent more time, which equated to more money.
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So that was a win for everybody.
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Having Mark there was a great thing.
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I'll tell you a story.
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I can't remember the name of the trolley, the flower
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trolley, the lady that does the fresh cut flowers.
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We've had a couple of different ones.
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We have a new one now.
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And I remember there was a flower, I swear
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to gosh, this flower was the size of my face.
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It was this, it was so beautiful.
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I couldn't pass it up.
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I got it, I put it in my condo, I come downstairs, I go
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to smell it, I lean in to smell it, and a spider, the
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size of the flower, comes crawling off the side of it.
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I smacked that thing across, I [laughs] ran downstairs, and I was
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screaming, and the next time I saw her, she gave me free flowers,
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cause she was like, well, this is real flowers with no pesticides.
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Came straight from the farm.
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And it was so beautiful.
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Still to this day, the most beautiful flower I've ever seen in my life.
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But I will never, I'll never forget that.
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I will never forget sharing that story with her and her giving me new flowers.
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There are people who are always like, I'm real sorry about the spider.
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Please just take another one.
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I'm so sorry.
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Flower, I'm sorry you pelted it across the kitchen.
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So there's, there's so many good stories to,
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that are connected to your farmer's market.
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It brings families together.
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It's a reason for people to visit Knoxville when they're here.
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They don't know what we have to offer and that is a place, a gathering
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place, to bring people together to get to know what local farmers there are
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because I was unaware that that were that many and that had those, those many
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different forms of food available year round until, until you built that out.
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So I really appreciate everything that you've done for that.
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Would you please Would you quickly go back through each
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program you offer and how people can find you, donate
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to you, and enjoy this, uh, this event in February?
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I'm going to push that up.
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I may end up selling your tickets out for you.
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I'm really excited about that.
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That's why we moved to a larger venue.
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It does tend to sell out.
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So one of the perks of donating at $150 and more is
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that you get advanced ticket notice for our events.
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You know, a little plug for that.
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Yeah, so our website is nourishnoxville.org.
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There you can find, you know, links to our East Tennessee Local
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Food Guide, both a PDF version and the searchable online version.
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You can find information there about our Nourish Kids
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program and the other markets at which we offer those.
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You can find information about SNAP Doubling and also
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the other markets that accept SNAP and offer Doubling.
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You can find information about our Moves Program and where we do that.
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You can also find information about how to volunteer, or if you
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are someone that wants to sponsor or have a non profit organization
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that wants to work with our kids, activity leads, there's a lot
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of other partnerships that you can find out about on our website.
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Obviously, there are plenty of ways that you can
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send money to us through the website as well.
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And then information about Friends and Farmers, our appreciation event
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is there, and as well as what we know so far about Winter Warmer.
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But yes, if, you know, if donors at $150 and above or who
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volunteer 10 hours or more receive, are invited to Friends and
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Farmers and receive those advance ticket notifications as well.
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Charlotte, I have Absolutely enjoyed learning about Nourish Knoxville with
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you today, and it means the world that you took time out to be on our podcast.
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I know that this is going to be an extremely popular one.
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00:20:30,560 --> 00:20:34,439
Um, we're at a little under 14,000 listens a month, so
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we're starting to climb the ranks for Knoxville podcasting,
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but it's really just means a lot that you took the time.
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I know you're very busy, and I know that you're
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very focused, and it's farm time right now.
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Season for some corn.
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Everything's going great.
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Like let's go.
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I won't take too much more of your time,
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but I want to say thank you so very much.
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And it means the world to us that you spent time with us today.
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So everybody thank you so much for tuning
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into another episode of Connect the Knox.
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I'm Julia Hurley.
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Connecting Knoxville to the nation.
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Until next time.
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Thank you for tuning into the show.
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00:21:05,760 --> 00:21:07,860
Make sure to like and subscribe.
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00:21:07,930 --> 00:21:10,939
Leave a five star review on your podcast player of choice.
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00:21:11,199 --> 00:21:13,279
And if you would like information on moving
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to Knoxville, send me a private message.
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As always, this is Julia Hurley connecting Knoxville to the nation.