The Future of RCM

We want to wish everyone Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year, and express our appreciation for everyone’s involvement with Russellville Community Market over the years. We also appreciate everyone’s feedback via the recent survey about the market.

Over the years, the RCM board and our market managers have made diligent efforts to grow the market and improve its function. During the last year, these efforts included significant financial commitments to advertising, market promotions, and to paying a market manager. Unfortunately, our efforts to grow the market have not resulted in an increased income level that will allow us to continue to pay a market manager and we have been unable to identify a reliable person to make a long term commitment to take over the market manager position as a volunteer.

As a result, the RCM board met on December 16th to make some difficult decisions about the future of RCM. Below is a summary of our discussion and conclusions:

In the event that a viable solution for moving forward with market management cannot be found, RCM will shut down for the foreseeable future after the market on Thursday, January 12th.

The RCM board will take the coming months to think about the future of the market and come to the March RCM board meeting with ideas about ways to move forward and possibly reopen the market. We invite people from the RCM community to offer ideas for sustainable ways forward, to nominate new RCM board members who are passionate about local food, and to consider making a commitment to volunteering as a market manager. If you would like to share any ideas you may have, please don’t hesitate to contact Bryan Mader at bryanrmader@yahoo.com, at 913-636-8193 (call or text) or through the RCM email address at russellvillecommunitymarket@gmail.com.

During the RCM board meeting on the first Thursday of March, the RCM board will consider our options and decide whether to attempt to reopen the market under an alternative management model or close the market permanently. People from the RCM community are encouraged to share ideas in the interim and/or attend the RCM board meeting in March.

Once again, we appreciate everyone’s involvement with RCM over the years and we hope we can find a sustainable way to continue to support the availability of fresh, local food for the community and good livelihoods for our local farmers.

With that said, we will have two markets before our closure on January 12th. We will be having a market on January 5th and on January 12th.

If you have any further questions or comments, please contact us at the email/phone listed above.

Thank you