Stay tuned for In Our Range on the way next, brought to you by Westgate Nursing Rehabilitation and Assisted Living Center.
Good morning and welcome to In Our Range.
I'm your host, Mike LeBeau.
My guests this morning are Nancy Rudolph and Anthony Hansen-Lynn with the Gogebic Range Concert Band.
The Gogebic Range Concert Band is an all-volunteer concert band formed in 1983.
It serves as a community music ensemble providing opportunities for local musicians to perform and engage with the arts.
The band currently has 35 members ranging in age from 15 to over 90.
The band performs free concerts throughout the year across the Gogebic Range.
They've been featured at Independence Day celebrations and perform an annual free holiday concert at the Historic Ironwood Theatre.
The Golgebic Range concert band also hosts Tuba Christmas in December, which features Christmas songs performed on the Tuba family of instruments.
The band will be performing at the band's shell at Longyear Park in Ironwood on August 4th.
This performance is a part of their free summer concert series and will be a celebration of America's 250th.
With me this morning are Nancy Rudolph and Anthony Hansen-Lyn.
Nancy Rudolph has been with the concert band off and on since the 1990s.
In 2022, she rejoined the band full-time.
Nancy plays percussion and serves as vice president.
She is a graduate of A.D.
Johnston High School in Besmer.
Anthony Hansen Lin is the current director of the band.
He's been with the band since 2021 and has served as director since 2023.
He's originally from Iowa and moved to the Ironwood area in 2019.
He's served as a music teacher and been playing tuba since the fifth grade.
We're going to talk about some tuba here this morning.
Good morning, Nancy and Anthony.
Welcome to NR range.
Good
morning, Mike.
Good morning.
Thanks for having us.
First thing I want to ask you is how has the summer concert series been going so far?
I think it's been going really well.
We haven't been rained out yet, so that's always a plus.
That's good
news.
That's good news.
But we won't let the weather get us down.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it's going to be great weather
on the
fourth.
You know, I can I can almost guarantee it.
Yes.
For your summer concert series, you're playing in different venues throughout the summer.
Is it the same set from concert to concert?
Do you switch things up as the series goes along?
Well, every single concert is going to have a different lineup.
There might be a few commonalities between
a couple of concerts, but we try to keep it fresh every time.
Right.
So that's a lot of rehearsals,
huh?
Well, not as many as we'd like,
but a lot of practicing by the members.
And
so
what are your what are some of your favorite tunes so far this summer that you've been playing?
Oh, you're asking me?
Wow.
Oh, sweet Caroline.
Oh,
yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Got to get with the beach, you know.
Sweet Caroline the Neil Diamond classic.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
And of course, some of the more traditional ones.
Yeah.
Well, I'm a little bit biased because I have a pretty heavy hand in picking the music.
So the director maybe.
Yes.
But one of my all time favorites we did this year, which is our Pirates of the Caribbean medley.
That's one that one's near and dear to me.
That's lovely.
That's yeah, you're really tackling something there.
So it's a medley.
I heard a wonderful medley at the Wakefield fireworks that you all performed is some beautiful American and Americana music going on during that performance.
It was really good to see you guys there under the pavilion
and to
sit and listen.
It is it's a real treat.
I think sometimes in this world where we are constantly inundated with digital media and very loud electric
and everything's big.
Concert band music has almost become like folk music you know where especially with an all-volunteer setup like what you have you're hearing your neighbors and friends and family perform and I
I tend to get emotional when I'm when I'm listening to just folks from my community play these beautiful arrangements and perform at these concerts and knowing that they're just doing it for the passion because it really comes across.
And so I can imagine it's been like that really since 1983, huh?
I
would say so.
Yes.
Nancy, you've been on and off with the concert range band since
the
1990s.
Right.
How were your first experiences with the band?
Excellent.
It's good to be included and needed, can I say?
I am appreciative of my co-drummer and appreciative of the staff, Anthony, and now that I'm on the board, I appreciate that opportunity as well.
And when we practice, we have people that come and listen to our practices also because obviously we're down at the park and there's all kinds of little kids and whatnot.
So on a given practice night, we practice every Tuesday night, usually during the summer.
at seven o'clock and you'd be surprised at the number of people that come and just walk through or sit down and listen to us practice so that, yeah.
Yeah, I've been one of those people.
I
used to live over on West Ridge
Street
right by Riverside Cemetery
there
so I could hear you.
And I would head on out there sometimes bring my kids because they like to play at the park.
So you're not just getting to follow a passion and bang on some drums.
You're getting to be part of a community
that
really feels very
tight.
Yes.
So, practices are held in the summertime every Tuesday over at Longyear Park at 7 p.m.
And I would assume you're always looking for new members, some fresh meat.
Absolutely.
Always, always.
If you play or used to play an instrument, you want to dust it off, we're always happy to talk with people.
If you want to join, if you want a little bit of practice time before making a decision, that's fine too.
We'll be happy to talk with you.
Great.
Great.
Any particular need.
Any thing.
Anything and everything always.
Dramas always need help.
Yeah.
Excellent.
Yeah.
So if you like to bang on stuff and you can do it to a tempo, come on down to Longyear at seven o'clock and talk to Nancy.
Oh
gosh.
give you a cowbell or
something.
He's just got to pick out the right music.
That's the problem.
Yeah.
Yes.
Because then if there isn't anything typed out there for what I do, I have to improvise, which I don't mind, but then sometimes he'll give me a look and okay,
okay.
Pull it back
a little
bit.
Starting
to look like an
animal out there
from the
Muppets.
Right?
Well, when you came back, one of
the very first things that we did have to get on the same page on was the please stop playing sign.
You know, that was probably one of the hardest lessons that I've learned in my life as a musician is you can always do less.
Yeah,
you can always just stop.
Yeah, sometimes less is more and it's about really
when you talk about being a part of the community when you're in a band you really are just you have your single part but it can feel so lovely to feel the wholeness.
of it, you know.
So with the rhythm section in here today, we've got Nancy on percussion, and then we've got the bass player here, the tuba.
The tuba.
So do you conduct or do you sit down and play tuba?
These days, I am the full-time stick waiver for
the band.
Yeah.
Minus the July 4th when they... and tuba Christmas when they let me pick up my horn again.
Okay.
Yeah, excellent.
And so when I noticed I was doing research for the tuba,
Christmas is a tuba, Christmas, that the tuba is a whole family of instruments.
Can you explain that a little bit?
Well, when you think of the tuba, you probably think of the big one, and that that's your standard concert-based tuba.
And then if you think of a baritone, also known as a euphonium, that is more technically termed the tenor
tuba.
Yeah, that's it.
Daddy saying bass, mama saying tenor kind of thing happening here on Classic Country.
And so the Tuba Christmas features that family of instruments from the band performing Christmas songs.
Yep, from the band.
And we also have members from outside the band who come and join us for two, two area directors, sometimes people who don't usually play Tuba.
So if you've ever played the Tuba, you can give us a shout for that, too.
It's a
lot of fun.
Tuba enthusiasts unite.
You have nothing to lose but the treble.
So that will bring me to August, your August 4th performance, which will be at long year at 7 p.m.
It is a special performance in celebration of America's 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
How are preparations going for that?
Oh, they're going well.
Going well, word.
full swing at one rehearsal left, and it's the concert already, so
I'm just going flying.
It has been really going by quickly.
And so do you want to share any previews of what people can expect when they come?
Well, when I was putting together the list for the concert, kind of in the back of my mind, what I wanted to do is I wanted to showcase music from the 250 years and not just have it all be
too similar.
And so we have pieces from the Revolutionary War.
We have some Dixieland.
We have gospel.
We have some musical.
So it's a wide variety from a wide variety of time, just trying to show how music in the United States has changed over over this 250 years, that rich history that we have.
Yeah, really, you know,
Apart from individual liberties and rights in the Constitution
I personally, and I have a bias as a musician, I think America's greatest contribution to the planet has been the music that's been created here from the beginning.
You had everyone coming from these different cultures, and it's just been this big mix.
And when you talk about Dixieland, that's where, you know, you're talking about down near New Orleans, you're talking about the beginnings of jazz, which came out of blues.
Blues is related to country music, which, you know, the banjo is an African instrument, and so you just have
this incredible mix of cultures and the totally unique forms and styles of music.
You know, maybe we could expect a little Aaron Copeland or a Shaker melody along the way.
I mean, is that too cliche?
You'll get some pretty close to that.
You'll just have to come to the concert and then give us a review after that and see if it meets up with what you had anticipated.
Anthony does a good job of lining up the songs and, you know,
I see.
You play a cool hot shot.
I got
one a little bit more.
I
understand.
Excellent.
So August 4th at 7 p.m.
at the at Longyear Park and then there'll be one more performance after that.
That's September 1st.
Yes.
At Longyear as well.
Yes.
Big closeout.
Yep.
For that.
Yeah.
But we continue on during the fall season and the winter.
Yep.
Are there any annual traditions when you close out the summer series?
Anything that you like to do and hold up from year to year?
Or what sort of approach do you like to take at the end of the summer series?
Well, at the end of the summer, what I like to do is I like to ask people what songs they've heard us play throughout the year that they're interested in hearing again.
And so our last concert, it's not a complete reprise of what we've done over the year.
There's plenty of new stuff, but I always like to get some of those band and audience favorites back in there again, too.
Yeah, sort of like a hit list from the series.
Excellent.
Great way to end out the summer.
And sometimes I can imagine those summer concerts are a little more autumnal.
And then you maybe anticipated when you get into September.
So if you're looking to volunteer with the band, you can reach out to them on their Facebook page, right?
Go Gebek range concert band or just come down to rehearsal.
That would be ideal.
Come to the practice.
or the concert itself and then seek out Anthony afterwards or before.
I mean, he's real easy to talk to.
Yeah, nice.
We also have an email that I promise to keep checking regularly.
Go Gebekband at gmail.com.
So if you want to send me an email with any questions or anything that is available to you as well, go Gebekband at gmail.com.
When is there anything else you'd like to add before we get out of here this morning?
We appreciate people's contributions.
We do not charge our when we have a concert.
We do put out a bowl there for anybody that would like to make a donation and it's not necessary, but oftentimes people will drop a few dollars in and we greatly appreciate that and
yeah, it really helps.
Yes, it helps
keeping up
with instruments and right instruments those that
that need to be repaired and of course now with our community as it is that we don't have a local person that we can go to here and so that's always a struggle.
Yeah, it makes it a
little more
difficult.
So donations are always welcome.
Always welcome.
Look for
the tip jar when you're out over there at Long Year Park.
Nancy and Anthony, I really want to thank you for joining me this morning.
Well, thank you
so much for having
us.
You all have a
wonderful day and break a leg on the 4th.
Thank you.
My guests this morning were Anthony Hansen-Lynne and Nancy Rudolph with the Gogebic Range Concert Band.
The concert band will perform their special USA 250 concert on Tuesday, August 4th at 7pm at the band shell at Longyear Park in Ironwood.
Performances are free, but donations are gratefully and gladly accepted.
They will complete their summer series at Longyear Park on September 1st at 7pm.
The band is always looking for new members.
You can inquire by attending their rehearsals at Longyear Park in Ironwood on Tuesdays at 7pm.
You can also reach them on their Facebook page or email them at gogebicbandatgmail.com.
Thank you for listening to In Our Range.
I'm your host, Mike LeBeau.
We'll be back next week.
Stay tuned for In Our Range On The Way Next, brought to you by Westgate Nursing Rehabilitation and Assisted Living Center.
Good morning and welcome to In Our Range.
I'm your host, Mike LeBeau.
Joining me this morning is Vivian Alice, acting president of the Ironwood Farmers Market.
The Ironwood Farmers Markets are two weekly markets held from June to October each year.
The Ironwood Township Market is held on Tuesdays from 4-7pm at the Pavilion at Airport Park.
The Downtown Ironwood Farmers Market happens each Friday from 4-7pm at the Historic Depot Park.
On first Fridays, like the one we have coming up, the market is held at the Downtown Square Park.
Vivian Alice is president of the Ironwood Farmers' Markets.
She is a graduate of Luther L. Wright and has worked for years with Theater North where she currently serves on the board of directors.
She's been a vendor with the market presenting her own art and designs as the owner of Paper Syrup Company.
Good morning Vivian and welcome to In Our Range.
Hi Mai, thanks for having me.
Yeah, I appreciate you coming on.
I'm glad we could get somebody from the market in today.
The Ironwood Farmers' Market is actually two different markets that happen weekly, right?
Yes, so on Tuesdays and on Fridays every week from four to seven.
On Tuesdays it's going to be held at the airport park in the Ironwood Township and then on Fridays we have it at the Depot Park in a city of Ironwood downtown.
So the markets are held from four to seven p.m.
on Tuesdays and Thursdays and you can find most of the same vendors there.
Yes, we do have some that have been with us for a long time but we have a lot of new vendors this year.
We have people who
wanted to join our farmers market that do a lot of handmade crafts so that helps fill the beginning part of our season when we don't have as much produce because our growing season is obviously very very short being that we live so close to Canada.
And so our produce usually comes end of July, August is when we have the main bulk of our produce from our growers unless it's berries.
Our berries are typically earlier in the season if they do come to our farmers market.
Great.
And in addition to the weekly farmers and artisans and crafters and bakers, there's also special events throughout the season.
So I know that those are coming up as well.
What are some events that you would like to highlight for our listeners here today coming up?
So the closest event coming up is going to be a firetruck day on our Tuesday market, August 18th.
That's going to be from around 4.30.
to seven is when they'll be there.
The Ironwood Township Fire Department is going to be coming in and bringing their trucks.
So bring your kids, bring your whole family.
They can come and play on the trucks and meet the firefighters.
And it should be a really fun time.
Yeah, kids love playing on those fire trucks and it keeps them busy.
And I think it's something that the firefighters enjoy as well.
Oh, they love it.
They definitely do.
Excellent.
They work hard for us too, so
yeah, you
know they should get a little little glory have
a little good time
for sure
Then our second event that we have is we're gonna have a back-to-school ice cream social That's gonna be for our Tuesday and Friday markets August 25th from 4 to 7 and then August 28th from 4 to 7 and we do want to thank super one because they did donate some money to the farmers market so that we could put on this ice cream social For the kids since they're gonna be going back to school around that time.
Yeah, so on August 18th It's a fire truck day over at the township farmers market
and then back to school ice cream socials at the Township Market on 25th and the downtown farmers market on the 28th.
Yes,
at the Depot Park.
Over at the Depot Park.
Sounds like a good time.
So lots of things for kids, including St.
Maud's is generally at the Ironwood Farmers Market.
At Depot Park.
At Depot Park every Friday.
You can get your kid involved in some woodworking and learn some skills every Friday afternoon out there.
Karl and the crew do a great job with these.
Yeah, they do an amazing job.
And we're really lucky to have them at the farmer's market too.
Yeah, excellent.
And so one thing that you and I talked about discussing to make sure that people were aware of is that there are several food assistance programs that people can partake in in order to use their benefits that they're getting to access nutritious local foods, which will also it benefits everybody.
It helps make people healthier while also giving extra weight
of funding to help our farmers who work so hard here.
Local
growers, yeah.
For our local growers, our bakers.
So we have a few different programs and I definitely want to talk about it because they can be a little bit tricky.
The biggest one is Snap EBT, obviously.
So people can come to us and they bring their Snap card and then we just run it through our program and we swipe their card.
depends on how much they want to do for the day.
If they use $20, then we give them $20 worth of wooden tokens.
There's also a program that goes with that called Double Up Bucks.
And that program allows us to give them 20 extra dollars worth of free money a day.
So if they purchase $20, we can match that and give them $20.
They can accept less than $20.
I don't know
why they ever would, but you definitely can.
So it's
It's an extra incentive to come and buy fresh local foods and goods from the people who really care about what's going into our bodies, right?
Yeah.
So not only can we use our SNAP, EBT benefits at the farmers market, but there is a program that will also match.
Yeah,
it's part
of the SNAP program, actually.
Yeah,
it's their double up bucks program.
And so, yeah, up to $20 a day.
So if you come and you spend $20 worth of your SNAP, you can get $20 of extra, these are little silver tokens, and you can use those as well.
And any of our vendors that are selling something that you would be able to purchase with SNAP is something that you would be able to purchase with those tokens.
So that's an excellent way for people to stretch their dollar and have access to good,
nutritious foods.
You know, there are often gluten-free options available at the artisan's market and sometimes gluten-free options can be more expensive for people who are on a limited budget.
So having that opportunity to have those funds matched that they're using, it not just helps the person who's struggling financially to access better food, but it's helping the makers of those products as well to be successful and keep doing what they love by providing this healthy food.
A thousand percent.
You said it, Mike.
And I think it's kind of remarkable how many bakers we have that do gluten-free and, you know, different food allergy exceptions.
So I think that we're very lucky in that sense as well.
And there's some other programs as well that people can benefit from.
Yes.
So under the umbrella of Upcap, there's two programs.
There is Upcap and there's Food as Medicine.
These are the ones that are a little bit more tricky.
Most programs are for fresh produce, especially with a farmer's market.
That's kind of like a no-brainer with upcap.
However, for those vouchers, you sign up online and then they will send you a voucher in the mail.
And for upcap specifically, it is for meat, so poultry, pork, beef, fish, eggs.
wild rice and then honey and syrup.
And that's the only things that it is good for.
You cannot use it to buy actual produce, just those specific things.
So anybody who is selling those things at the market, you can use those vouchers for that specific program.
Our vendors sign up for those programs and then they redeem the vouchers or the tokens through us.
And then there's food as medicine, which does produce.
pretty broadly.
That's one that is fairly easy to understand.
I think upcap is usually the one that trips people up because ironically trips people up because it is specifically meat and eggs, dairy, and wild rice, honey, and syrup.
And then we also have Aspiris Health.
They have a food program.
I'm not sure if it has a very specific name.
So we just kind of call it Aspiris.
People can ask their doctor.
for tokens for the farmers market and they'll give them this little flyer and it's good for $20 worth of tokens and then we'll give them the tokens for that and then we'll take the voucher and then we send that in later to Aspirus.
The final program is called Senior Project Fresh.
Now that one we don't have as much to do with.
So if you qualify for that program, you will need to go online and look up Senior Project Fresh and sign up for that kind of separately.
That's through the state of Michigan?
Yes, that's through the state of Michigan.
I do believe you can go to the Department of Health and Human Services and get help that way to sign up if there's any struggle with figuring that out.
And then on the back end, our vendors also sign up for that program if they're eligible and they sell products that you would be able to redeem with through that program.
They also have to do a training.
So sometimes it takes a little bit longer for our vendors to fully
kind of lock in on that program and be able to reap the benefits and for our patrons to be able to reap the benefits of that program as well.
So this is really is a collaboration that requires a lot of work from not only like the producers and the people providing the food, but the management of the board and the ironwood market itself and these several different agencies to make sure this all goes together.
For those interested in checking out the upcap program, they can go to www.upcap.org and check out their programs there.
The food is medicine program.
You can find more information
on that at FIMcoalition.org and get involved there.
And then the Senior Project Fresh program is through the state of Michigan.
You can go to Michigan.gov and visit their special programs page in order to learn more about that.
But these are all incredible ways
for people who are struggling financially to get access to healthier food and they also support the producers of this food because it makes sure that they get paid for all their hard work.
Yeah it's so nice and thank you also for listing all the websites so that people know where they can go because that's very helpful.
I want people to know as well that at any given point
any one of us board members will be at the market, so if they're ever confused or they're not sure, they can reach out to us.
And one of us, at least one of us, will be at a table.
set up with a little tablet and that's how you'll know it's us.
We're not selling anything.
We just have a bunch of flyers.
Managing.
Yep.
Yeah, so let's talk about the board of directors and folks and the group of folks that help make this possible here in town.
If there's any shout outs you want to give or descriptions that you want to give for people on the board and vendors, you know, let's give them their moment here.
Sure.
So there are a total of five of us, including myself on the board.
I'm president of the board and then we have Mary Casten.
She's our treasurer.
If anyone deserves a shout out, it is definitely her.
Wonderful artist.
Been there for years.
She's
been there for a very long time
and
she's kind of our guiding light honestly on the board because all of the rest of us are new and there was kind of, they lost quite a few board members last year and then this year we had some
turn around in some changes and it feels like the dust has finally settled and we've kind of got our core group of people who are here and ready to serve our community.
So Mary has, yeah, she's been a wonderful mentor for all of us as we find our footing.
I love her so much.
She owns a business called Snow Country Creations and they make handmade jewelry and things like that.
Our husband is an artist and
designer, and he's a fabulous, wonderful human being.
They're both really sweet people.
And then we have Greg, he's our vice president, and he's also our Friday market liaison.
So if people ever have questions on our Friday market, they can go and they can find him and ask any questions and hopefully have answered through him.
And if he doesn't know, then he'll reach out to any one of us and we'll try to get their question answered.
His business is Lintocoto, and they have a homestead, so they sell eggs, and they sell
produce and they also do arts and crafts, him and his wife and daughters.
So it feels like we have a really diverse group of people on the board who represent a lot of our, you know, our farmers, our artisans and our creatives.
We also have Bridget Young.
She is our Tuesday liaison.
She owns Bear Hug.
A lot of people will know who I'm talking about
because
she sells freeze-dried candies, and people love that so much.
She also does baked goods, and she does eggs and produce as well.
She also has a homestead.
And then Anastasia Wigfield is our secretary.
So yeah, we have a really wonderful team.
Anastasia, she has Nature's Carousel.
She makes sourdough and baked goods.
She's also working on gluten-free products as well.
And so if people would like to become involved and offer more support to the farmers market, because I'm sure you could always use some more volunteers and people that can take on some work, well, how can they contact you?
The best way to contact us would probably be through our email or through Facebook.
So our email is ironwoodfarmersmarket at gmail.com.
or they can find us on our Facebook page at the Ironwood Farmers Market.
They can send us a DM.
Brigitte manages our website, actually.
She's our social media manager, and she's been doing a fabulous job.
So if they reach out, she will get back to them very quickly.
And yeah, if they have any specific skills, we would love to hear about what skills you have and how you would be able to reach out to our vendors or sponsors or anything like that.
Just send us a message or send us an email.
We'd love that.
Oh, great.
Well, thank you so much Vivian.
Is there anything else you'd like to add before we get out of here this morning?
Come to the farmer's market.
Come meet our farmers, come meet our local growers and our artisans, our creative, crafty people.
This year we actually even had a blacksmith apply, which is incredible.
His work is pretty great.
It's so cool.
I think each year it just gets a little bit bigger and a little bit more well known and people kind of understand a little bit better.
I'm excited to see where the farmers market goes and I'm grateful to everyone who is here and has been here from the beginning since its inception, giving it love and giving love to our local producers.
And today the farmers market will be held at the downtown square park from four to seven p.m.
So make sure you get on down there as part of the first Friday festivities.
Vivian, thanks for joining us this morning on In Our Range.
Thank you so much, Mike.
My guess this morning was Vivian Alice with the ironwood farmers markets I'd like to thank her for coming in this morning The farmers markets are held in ironwood on Tuesdays at the pavilion at the airport park from 4 to 7 p.m.
And then on Fridays downtown from 4 to 7 p.m.
This week the ironwood farmers market will be at the downtown city square park as part of the first Friday festivities The ironwood farmers market would like to thank the following volunteers and sponsors for their time
Time and Monetary Contributions, the Gogevic Range Conservation, Super 1 Foods, North Wind Co-op, Ironwood Township Fire Department, the Ironwood Chamber of Commerce, Judy and Ted Sims.
for all of their help.
So thank you.
If you would like to get involved with the farmers market or have any questions, you can contact them on their Facebook page.
Reach out to them by email at ironwoodfarmersmarket at gmail.com or check out their website at ironwoodfarmersmarket.com.
This has been in our range.
I'm your host, Michael Bow.
Thanks for joining us this morning and we'll be back next week.
Stay tuned for In Our Range On The Way Next, brought to you by Westgate Nursing Rehabilitation and Assisted Living Center.
Good morning and welcome to In Our Range.
I'm your host, Mike LeBeau.
Joining me this morning is Vivian Alice, acting president of the Ironwood Farmers Market.
The Ironwood Farmers Markets are two weekly markets held from June to October each year.
The Ironwood Township Market is held on Tuesdays from 4-7pm at the Pavilion at Airport Park.
The Downtown Ironwood Farmers Market happens each Friday from 4-7pm at the Historic Depot Park.
On first Fridays, like the one we have coming up, the market is held at the Downtown Square Park.
Vivian Alice is president of the Ironwood Farmers' Markets.
She is a graduate of Luther L. Wright and has worked for years with Theater North where she currently serves on the board of directors.
She's been a vendor with the market presenting her own art and designs as the owner of Paper Syrup Company.
Good morning Vivian and welcome to In Our Range.
Hi Mai, thanks for having me.
Yeah, I appreciate you coming on.
I'm glad we could get somebody from the market in today.
The Ironwood Farmers' Market is actually two different markets that happen weekly, right?
Yes, so on Tuesdays and on Fridays every week from four to seven.
On Tuesdays it's going to be held at the airport park in the Ironwood Township and then on Fridays we have it at the Depot Park in a city of Ironwood downtown.
So the markets are held from four to seven p.m.
on Tuesdays and Thursdays and you can find most of the same vendors there.
Yes, we do have some that have been with us for a long time but we have a lot of new vendors this year.
We have people who
wanted to join our farmers market that do a lot of handmade crafts so that helps fill the beginning part of our season when we don't have as much produce because our growing season is obviously very very short being that we live so close to Canada.
And so our produce usually comes end of July, August is when we have the main bulk of our produce from our growers unless it's berries.
Our berries are typically earlier in the season if they do come to our farmers market.
Great.
And in addition to the weekly farmers and artisans and crafters and bakers, there's also special events throughout the season.
So I know that those are coming up as well.
What are some events that you would like to highlight for our listeners here today coming up?
So the closest event coming up is going to be a firetruck day on our Tuesday market, August 18th.
That's going to be from around 4.30.
to seven is when they'll be there.
The Ironwood Township Fire Department is going to be coming in and bringing their trucks.
So bring your kids, bring your whole family.
They can come and play on the trucks and meet the firefighters.
And it should be a really fun time.
Yeah, kids love playing on those fire trucks and it keeps them busy.
And I think it's something that the firefighters enjoy as well.
Oh, they love it.
They definitely do.
Excellent.
They work hard for us too, so
yeah, you
know they should get a little little glory have
a little good time
for sure
Then our second event that we have is we're gonna have a back-to-school ice cream social That's gonna be for our Tuesday and Friday markets August 25th from 4 to 7 and then August 28th from 4 to 7 and we do want to thank super one because they did donate some money to the farmers market so that we could put on this ice cream social For the kids since they're gonna be going back to school around that time.
Yeah, so on August 18th It's a fire truck day over at the township farmers market
and then back to school ice cream socials at the Township Market on 25th and the downtown farmers market on the 28th.
Yes,
at the Depot Park.
Over at the Depot Park.
Sounds like a good time.
So lots of things for kids, including St.
Maud's is generally at the Ironwood Farmers Market.
At Depot Park.
At Depot Park every Friday.
You can get your kid involved in some woodworking and learn some skills every Friday afternoon out there.
Karl and the crew do a great job with these.
Yeah, they do an amazing job.
And we're really lucky to have them at the farmer's market too.
Yeah, excellent.
And so one thing that you and I talked about discussing to make sure that people were aware of is that there are several food assistance programs that people can partake in in order to use their benefits that they're getting to access nutritious local foods, which will also it benefits everybody.
It helps make people healthier while also giving extra weight
of funding to help our farmers who work so hard here.
Local
growers, yeah.
For our local growers, our bakers.
So we have a few different programs and I definitely want to talk about it because they can be a little bit tricky.
The biggest one is Snap EBT, obviously.
So people can come to us and they bring their Snap card and then we just run it through our program and we swipe their card.
depends on how much they want to do for the day.
If they use $20, then we give them $20 worth of wooden tokens.
There's also a program that goes with that called Double Up Bucks.
And that program allows us to give them 20 extra dollars worth of free money a day.
So if they purchase $20, we can match that and give them $20.
They can accept less than $20.
I don't know
why they ever would, but you definitely can.
So it's
It's an extra incentive to come and buy fresh local foods and goods from the people who really care about what's going into our bodies, right?
Yeah.
So not only can we use our SNAP, EBT benefits at the farmers market, but there is a program that will also match.
Yeah,
it's part
of the SNAP program, actually.
Yeah,
it's their double up bucks program.
And so, yeah, up to $20 a day.
So if you come and you spend $20 worth of your SNAP, you can get $20 of extra, these are little silver tokens, and you can use those as well.
And any of our vendors that are selling something that you would be able to purchase with SNAP is something that you would be able to purchase with those tokens.
So that's an excellent way for people to stretch their dollar and have access to good,
nutritious foods.
You know, there are often gluten-free options available at the artisan's market and sometimes gluten-free options can be more expensive for people who are on a limited budget.
So having that opportunity to have those funds matched that they're using, it not just helps the person who's struggling financially to access better food, but it's helping the makers of those products as well to be successful and keep doing what they love by providing this healthy food.
A thousand percent.
You said it, Mike.
And I think it's kind of remarkable how many bakers we have that do gluten-free and, you know, different food allergy exceptions.
So I think that we're very lucky in that sense as well.
And there's some other programs as well that people can benefit from.
Yes.
So under the umbrella of Upcap, there's two programs.
There is Upcap and there's Food as Medicine.
These are the ones that are a little bit more tricky.
Most programs are for fresh produce, especially with a farmer's market.
That's kind of like a no-brainer with upcap.
However, for those vouchers, you sign up online and then they will send you a voucher in the mail.
And for upcap specifically, it is for meat, so poultry, pork, beef, fish, eggs.
wild rice and then honey and syrup.
And that's the only things that it is good for.
You cannot use it to buy actual produce, just those specific things.
So anybody who is selling those things at the market, you can use those vouchers for that specific program.
Our vendors sign up for those programs and then they redeem the vouchers or the tokens through us.
And then there's food as medicine, which does produce.
pretty broadly.
That's one that is fairly easy to understand.
I think upcap is usually the one that trips people up because ironically trips people up because it is specifically meat and eggs, dairy, and wild rice, honey, and syrup.
And then we also have Aspiris Health.
They have a food program.
I'm not sure if it has a very specific name.
So we just kind of call it Aspiris.
People can ask their doctor.
for tokens for the farmers market and they'll give them this little flyer and it's good for $20 worth of tokens and then we'll give them the tokens for that and then we'll take the voucher and then we send that in later to Aspirus.
The final program is called Senior Project Fresh.
Now that one we don't have as much to do with.
So if you qualify for that program, you will need to go online and look up Senior Project Fresh and sign up for that kind of separately.
That's through the state of Michigan?
Yes, that's through the state of Michigan.
I do believe you can go to the Department of Health and Human Services and get help that way to sign up if there's any struggle with figuring that out.
And then on the back end, our vendors also sign up for that program if they're eligible and they sell products that you would be able to redeem with through that program.
They also have to do a training.
So sometimes it takes a little bit longer for our vendors to fully
kind of lock in on that program and be able to reap the benefits and for our patrons to be able to reap the benefits of that program as well.
So this is really is a collaboration that requires a lot of work from not only like the producers and the people providing the food, but the management of the board and the ironwood market itself and these several different agencies to make sure this all goes together.
For those interested in checking out the upcap program, they can go to www.upcap.org and check out their programs there.
The food is medicine program.
You can find more information
on that at FIMcoalition.org and get involved there.
And then the Senior Project Fresh program is through the state of Michigan.
You can go to Michigan.gov and visit their special programs page in order to learn more about that.
But these are all incredible ways
for people who are struggling financially to get access to healthier food and they also support the producers of this food because it makes sure that they get paid for all their hard work.
Yeah it's so nice and thank you also for listing all the websites so that people know where they can go because that's very helpful.
I want people to know as well that at any given point
any one of us board members will be at the market, so if they're ever confused or they're not sure, they can reach out to us.
And one of us, at least one of us, will be at a table.
set up with a little tablet and that's how you'll know it's us.
We're not selling anything.
We just have a bunch of flyers.
Managing.
Yep.
Yeah, so let's talk about the board of directors and folks and the group of folks that help make this possible here in town.
If there's any shout outs you want to give or descriptions that you want to give for people on the board and vendors, you know, let's give them their moment here.
Sure.
So there are a total of five of us, including myself on the board.
I'm president of the board and then we have Mary Casten.
She's our treasurer.
If anyone deserves a shout out, it is definitely her.
Wonderful artist.
Been there for years.
She's
been there for a very long time
and
she's kind of our guiding light honestly on the board because all of the rest of us are new and there was kind of, they lost quite a few board members last year and then this year we had some
turn around in some changes and it feels like the dust has finally settled and we've kind of got our core group of people who are here and ready to serve our community.
So Mary has, yeah, she's been a wonderful mentor for all of us as we find our footing.
I love her so much.
She owns a business called Snow Country Creations and they make handmade jewelry and things like that.
Our husband is an artist and
designer, and he's a fabulous, wonderful human being.
They're both really sweet people.
And then we have Greg, he's our vice president, and he's also our Friday market liaison.
So if people ever have questions on our Friday market, they can go and they can find him and ask any questions and hopefully have answered through him.
And if he doesn't know, then he'll reach out to any one of us and we'll try to get their question answered.
His business is Lintocoto, and they have a homestead, so they sell eggs, and they sell
produce and they also do arts and crafts, him and his wife and daughters.
So it feels like we have a really diverse group of people on the board who represent a lot of our, you know, our farmers, our artisans and our creatives.
We also have Bridget Young.
She is our Tuesday liaison.
She owns Bear Hug.
A lot of people will know who I'm talking about
because
she sells freeze-dried candies, and people love that so much.
She also does baked goods, and she does eggs and produce as well.
She also has a homestead.
And then Anastasia Wigfield is our secretary.
So yeah, we have a really wonderful team.
Anastasia, she has Nature's Carousel.
She makes sourdough and baked goods.
She's also working on gluten-free products as well.
And so if people would like to become involved and offer more support to the farmers market, because I'm sure you could always use some more volunteers and people that can take on some work, well, how can they contact you?
The best way to contact us would probably be through our email or through Facebook.
So our email is ironwoodfarmersmarket at gmail.com.
or they can find us on our Facebook page at the Ironwood Farmers Market.
They can send us a DM.
Brigitte manages our website, actually.
She's our social media manager, and she's been doing a fabulous job.
So if they reach out, she will get back to them very quickly.
And yeah, if they have any specific skills, we would love to hear about what skills you have and how you would be able to reach out to our vendors or sponsors or anything like that.
Just send us a message or send us an email.
We'd love that.
Oh, great.
Well, thank you so much Vivian.
Is there anything else you'd like to add before we get out of here this morning?
Come to the farmer's market.
Come meet our farmers, come meet our local growers and our artisans, our creative, crafty people.
This year we actually even had a blacksmith apply, which is incredible.
His work is pretty great.
It's so cool.
I think each year it just gets a little bit bigger and a little bit more well known and people kind of understand a little bit better.
I'm excited to see where the farmers market goes and I'm grateful to everyone who is here and has been here from the beginning since its inception, giving it love and giving love to our local producers.
And today the farmers market will be held at the downtown square park from four to seven p.m.
So make sure you get on down there as part of the first Friday festivities.
Vivian, thanks for joining us this morning on In Our Range.
Thank you so much, Mike.
My guess this morning was Vivian Alice with the ironwood farmers markets I'd like to thank her for coming in this morning The farmers markets are held in ironwood on Tuesdays at the pavilion at the airport park from 4 to 7 p.m.
And then on Fridays downtown from 4 to 7 p.m.
This week the ironwood farmers market will be at the downtown city square park as part of the first Friday festivities The ironwood farmers market would like to thank the following volunteers and sponsors for their time
Time and Monetary Contributions, the Gogevic Range Conservation, Super 1 Foods, North Wind Co-op, Ironwood Township Fire Department, the Ironwood Chamber of Commerce, Judy and Ted Sims.
for all of their help.
So thank you.
If you would like to get involved with the farmers market or have any questions, you can contact them on their Facebook page.
Reach out to them by email at ironwoodfarmersmarket at gmail.com or check out their website at ironwoodfarmersmarket.com.
This has been in our range.
I'm your host, Michael Bow.
Thanks for joining us this morning and we'll be back next week.