Neighborhood Philanthropy: Oxford Community Market
Oxford is host to some wonderful non-profit organizations that provide for our community in so many ways. We want to provide a glimpse of these organizations each month. With the start of Spring, we thought it would be nice to highlight one of our favorite farmer’s market in the area, the Oxford Community Market.
Betsy Chapman is awesome. That’s all I can say. She has been the director of the Oxford Community Market for 7 years, and she has created something lovely and meaningful and bountiful in this community. Not only does the market provide a space every Tuesday afternoon to get delicious, homegrown food from local vendors, but their mission also states they provide programs to make healthy, local food accessible to all people in our community, especially those facing barriers of cost and transportation.
The Oxford Community Market currently has 8 other projects “working” in the LOU (Lafayette-Oxford-University) community. Some of these projects are geared towards certain holidays, like their Harvest Angel Project, which provides Oxford food pantry families with lots of fresh produce, baked goods, honey and eggs for their Thanksgiving meal. While other projects are on-going, like their “Oh, Snap” project and their Senior Voucher program. You can also find the Oxford Community Market crew and volunteers out in the community digging and creating community gardens in neighborhoods to both facilitate community and provide gardening education and their own food!
Like most everyone, the Oxford Community Market was hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic and they are excited to once again host their Spring Kick-Off Party. This year’s event will take place Tuesday, April 19th from 3:00-6:30 pm at the Old Armory Pavilion. They will have farm fresh food, great live music, FREE goodies and FUN for the whole family!
Learn more about the Oxford Community Market here or pop by to see them every Tuesday from 3:00-6:30 pm in the Spring and Noon-3:00 pm in the Winter at the Old Armory Pavilion. A HUGE thank you to Betsy Chapman, the staff, volunteers and board of directors for all you do for the LOU community! Donate or become a volunteer TODAY!