INC NEWS - hearty congrats to Elizabeth Gibbs, Durham Farmers' Market: Tarheel of the Week

[John Schelp]

Hearty congrats to Elizabeth Gibbs of our wonderful
Farmers' Market -- Durham's front porch...

Tarheel of the Week: Elizabeth Gibbs
 
'Wanna-be farmer' cultivates market: She has made it a
growing concern (News & Observer, 7 August 2005, by
Anne Blythe)

With a ledger tucked under her arm, Elizabeth Gibbs
moves from booth to booth at the Durham Farmers'
Market.

It is 10 a.m., and on a blistering Saturday there is
plenty of talk about trying to fry a farm-fresh egg on
the searing potholed pavement where the vendors have
pitched their canopies.

Farmers hawk their seasonal bounties in the Morris
Street parking lot once a week for eight months of the
year.

Gibbs, a slender woman wearing ankle-high work boots,
weaves among the tables stocked with ripe, red
tomatoes, freshly harvested corn, blueberries,
cantaloupes, watermelons and bright yellow sunflowers.

As manager of the 7-year-old market, Gibbs has
nurtured its blossoming from modest beginnings to the
flourishing locale it is today.

"This market has grown tremendously in the last two
years; it still shocks me," says Diane Brinkley, a
farmer who comes in from Creedmoor to give city folks
a taste of the nearby country. "Elizabeth is really
good for the market. She's real out there all the
time. She does well for the customers and for the
vendors."

Gibbs has just begun her mid-morning chore of
collecting dues from the vendors. An elderly man leans
forward in a folding chair as she approaches.

"Hold me back, hold me back," the thin, white-haired
vendor quips as he stretches out his sun-creased
hands. "Rejuvenate me, darling."

With a smile on her face and warmth in her tanned
arms, Gibbs embraces the fatherly flirt in a big bear
hug. "You're rejuvenated, Papa," she says.

He playfully complains about a nagging ache still
bothering him near his elbow. "That's from flapping
his arms like a spring chicken," Gibbs jests to a
nearby woman.

On a typical Saturday, the parking lot on the edge of
Durham's Central Park is easily filled with 35 of the
48 market members. Most of the vendors have fresh
produce. Some hawk homemade soaps, candles and other
crafts. Emma Gentry, a favorite of children and others
with a sweet tooth, lures many her way with
fresh-baked sweet potato pies, cookies, brownies and
other desserts.

"This process of collecting money takes me a long
time, because I talk to everybody," Gibbs says. "I
have to ask everybody how they're doing."

Gibbs, who describes herself as "a wanna-be farmer
with an extra-large suburban garden," was born in
Colorado Springs and spent the bulk of her childhood
years in Houston.

Although her father grew up on a farm in Oklahoma, her
mother was from New York City and preferred an urban
landscape. "As a child, I wanted to be a farmer, and
my parents would say, 'Oh, no you don't -- that's too
much work,' " Gibbs says.

On a farm, finally

But her parents split up, and her father went back to
Oklahoma. For her senior year of high school, Gibbs
chose to live with her dad on what she described as a
gentleman's cattle farm.

At Kenyon College in Ohio, she studied biology. Then
she made her way to Durham and Duke University, where
she received a master's degree in environmental
management.

A career in wildlife management was her plan at that
time. As part of her preparation, she made three
extended trips to Kenya, in 1998, 1999 and 2000.

"One thing I realized in grad school is that
scientists can look at how we treat the Earth, but
what we're really doing is looking at managing how a
lot of people use the Earth," Gibbs says.

Those thoughts planted the seeds for her deep
commitment to sustainable agriculture. No more did she
want to write sweeping policies for managing the
Earth's resources.

"I wanted to do something on a grass-roots scale," she
says.

An earnest and outgoing woman, Gibbs is a firm
believer in changing the world one person at a time.

When she worked at Wellspring grocery store several
years ago, she used to enjoy telling her customers
about the origins of the foods they enjoyed. By doing
that, she thought she might persuade people to look
more and more to their local farm communities and cut
down on some of the corporate agriculture that does
not always have the best environmental management
practices in mind.

Then in 1999, when the opportunity arose to be in on
the founding of Durham's latest farmers' market, Gibbs
jumped at the chance.

Kristen Deener, a VISTA volunteer with SEEDS (South
Eastern Efforts Developing Sustainable Spaces Inc.), a
nonprofit program that transforms vacant urban lots
into flower and vegetable gardens, was among the
founders.

Leah Cook and Terra Omni, also former Wellspring
workers, Jennifer Brown, a city waste worker, and
Julie Deschamps, who had land to farm, also were there
for the birthing.

With plans for a permanent vendor structure
progressing, the market seems to have staying power.

Gibbs, a single mother who just started a new job at
the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association in
Pittsboro, has been skillful at bringing together
people from all walks of life.

'Buy locally'

"My interest is mostly in educating people about where
their food comes from and why they should care about
it," Gibbs says. "I want people to buy locally, to buy
something from North Carolina, to as much as possible
get to know the farmers, get to know the farming
community, because that's your immediate environment."

In the Morris Street parking lot on a recent Saturday
morning, Gibbs is slow to make it from one end of the
parking lot to the other. Her son, Jonah, a friendly
fellow with a wide circle of market friends, is in the
shade, manning the T-shirt tent.

"My mom's around here somewhere," he says. "But she
might not be back here for a long time."

With a fanny pack wrapped around her waist and a
sleeveless blue T-shirt tucked into cream-colored
shorts, the market manager stops and starts many times
on her collection route. She has a reputation for
bringing order and quick help to vendors with
problems.

"She's really good," says Rich Cunningham of Sunny
Slopes in Bear Creek, Chatham County. "She does all
this organizing, getting everything together. It's
like night and day how different this place is from
what it was several years ago."

Shoppers rush up and hug Gibbs and then fill her in on
what the kids, neighbors and other acquaintances are
doing.

"Wherever I am or whoever I'm interacting with, I'm
pretty much all there," Gibbs says. "I'm just no good
at being false. I pretty much wear my emotions on my
sleeves. I'm just so passionate about what I'm doing
and I think people know that. Buying something from
somebody who has grown it locally is the next best
thing to growing it yourself."

Although she has not yet fulfilled her childhood dream
of being a farmer, Gibbs still harbors such thoughts.
"I would have livestock on any farm I had," she says.

She would also love to return to East Africa one day.

In the short term, though, the woman who says she's an
eternal learner will continue her work at the farm
stewardship program and tackle the challenges of a
growing Durham farmers' market.

"While the work has increased in the later years with
the success of the market," Gibbs says, "it's still a
labor of love."