Farmers at the firehouse

Facility hosts only year-round farmers’ market in Oroville

This article was published on 12.09.10

Terry Tillman (left) manages the weekly farmers’ market at the firehouse and also oversees a community garden. He’s shown here with Floyd Rogers, a vendor from Palermo (center), and market organizer Richard Roth.
Photo By Evan Tuchinsky

Since June 2008, the El Medio fire station in South Oroville has hosted a farmers’ market each Thursday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The local group cChaos—Collaboratively Creating Healthy Access, Opportunities and Services—organizes the Fire House Farmers Market, which grew out of a grant secured by cChaos Executive Director Richard Roth.

“This community really needs something like this,” said Floyd Rogers, a vendor from Palermo. “We’re the only year-round [farmers’] market in Oroville. Even though we’ve been here nearly three years now, there are still a lot of people in town who don’t realize we’re here year-round.”

Both the South Oroville market and its Chico counterpart—Friday afternoons in the Chapman neighborhood, at 16th and C streets—accept electronic-benefit transfer (EBT) cards.

“We have a number of people who walk up,” Roth said, “but a lot of customers come from throughout the Oroville area. Some people will come on their lunch breaks from local businesses.”

Behind the station sits a community garden planted by Terry Tillman, who manages the Fire House Farmers Market. “I worked a summer demo garden,” Tillman said, “and now we’ve started a winter demo garden. It’s coming along quite well.”