UKIAH, CA., 8/2/2025 – The best prices in town and the innocent sincerity of young entrepreneurs make for a satisfying and heartfelt experience at the Ukiah Library Kids Farmers Market.
Now in its 36th year, the Kids Market takes place from 10 am to noon on Wednesdays in Alex Thomas Plaza. If you want to see it, you’ll have to hurry – the last market of the summer is this Wednesday, Aug. 6.
The market was initially conceived by Jo-Anne Rosen, MFT and longtime local resident, with funds left over from a literacy program grant that she had been coordinating as a volunteer.
It began as – and remains – an opportunity for young farmers and entrepreneurs, ages 5-17, to learn the skills of sales and bartering, cash-based math, design, gardening, display, and marketing products.
There are no vendor fees, and kids set their own pricing. Some examples: tomato plants, $1; lemons, 25 cents; small muffins, $1 and large $2; cucumbers, 75 cents; vinegar, $2.50; local honey, $16; oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip, chocolate brownies and lemon bars, one for $1 and three for $2; Gravenstein apples, $4 per pound; grapes, $3 per pound; bookmarks, $2; ice cream with homemade chocolate chip cookies, $2; cherry tomato baskets, $2, and slime bars for $7.
Not everything is edible. There are, for example, bird feeders, $3; beaded projects, $3, and lavender bundles, $1.
Sophia Alonso, 17, a self-taught caricaturist, has been drawing since she was 10. It is her first time at the market this year, and she is creating a caricature of Kaley Keiser and her daughter, Cassidy, who is celebrating her 5th birthday.
“It’s very fulfilling. I get a real satisfaction out of meeting people and stylizing them,” Alonso says. “It’s so nice to memorialize that one moment and make it last forever.”
Julieta Lopez, 9, Stephanie Diaz, 10, and Priscilla Lopez, 8, have been at the market every week.
Julieta explains that after finding a recipe and shopping with her family for ingredients, they get to work creating. This week they are selling banana bread with chocolate chips, zucchini bread and rainbow fruit cups with blueberries, grapes, mango, cantaloupe and strawberries. The chocolate chip cookies are already sold out.
Easton Hicks, 6, and Kade Hicks, 8, are selling their mother’s homemade, professionally wrapped breads: jalapeno cheddar, original and cinnamon raisin. They help their mom make cookies and homemade soaps, which they also sell at the market.
Their mom, Sheila Hicks, who runs a farmstead at her house in Eldorado Estates, homeschools her boys and says the market provides an opportunity for them to interact with older adults and work with real money.
Bronwyn Ford, 10, sells her eye-catching, chocolate-covered strawberries with sprinkles, $2 per, and enjoys seeing what other kids are selling.
Miles Karakasevic, 14, is serving up homemade, sugar-free pineapple and strawberry sorbet.
“First I chop up the fruit and smash it into pint containers to get the juices out. If you leave the juices in, there’s no flavor and the texture is weird. I put some maple syrup in, freeze it for about 18 hours and put it into the spinner of our ice cream-maker-type thing.”
It’s his first week and he has made about $40, very close to breaking even.
Rosalie Sizemore Schulz, 10, is there for the first time selling her homegrown tomatoes, lemon cukes and regular cucumbers, lavender bundles, as well as her friend’s cherry plums.
She plans on putting the profits into her bank account.
Iris Dahlen, 9, sits with Koah Mayhugh amid a cornucopia of food, all of which she has grown or made: a large tray of freshly baked brownies; a juicy tea mixture of grape juice with hibiscus; plums; peaches; zucchini and tomatoes; bags of popcorn; and small and large bunches of flowers.
“We make a lot of sales, and you can find stuff that you actually really love to buy or barter here,” she says.
Co-facilitators Jen Lyon, senior library technician, Sam White, children’s librarian, and Cindi Goldberg, volunteer market coordinator, are there every week to make sure things run smoothly.
With ever-expanding vendors, the market outgrew its previous space in front of the library and last year moved to Alex Thomas Plaza. It now holds about 40 vendors, regularly.
They work in partnership with the city—which makes the space available for free—and the season runs for 8 weeks, beginning on June 16 and ending August 6.
“This is my all-time favorite volunteer position,” says Goldberg. “It brings me a lot of joy to be around the kids; it’s just a really happy place to be every Wednesday.”
“It’s soul-enriching seeing their sincerity, their earnestness, their passion for what they’re doing,” Lyon says. “They really own this space; it becomes their community on a weekly basis. They’re building relationships with kids of their own age and with adults and they’ll carry this community with them.”
White’s favorite part is watching the kids blossom, especially those who start out very hesitant to communicate, as they get more comfortable hanging out with the other kids and bartering at the end of every market.
“I love seeing all the relationships that develop and watching the kids grow over the course of the season. There’s only one more week this summer; then they’ll be back next season.”