Henderson County hosts ‘Farm to Table’ fundraiser for Farmers Market

LEXINGTON, Tenn. — A little rain won’t stop the Henderson County Chamber of Commerce from hosting the first annual Henderson County Farm to Table dinner.

The dinner is to raise money for a Henderson County Farmers Market, which organizers say is on the horizon.

“We don’t have a farmers market yet, but we’ve got one on the drawing board, and by next spring we hope to have that, and this is creating community interest,” said Brian White, the county agent with the UT-Ag Extension in Henderson County.

Creating a farmers market has been a goal for the Henderson County Leadership class this year. They helped organize the dinner as a fundraiser, with food all farmed locally.

“Everything is locally from the farmers, so we had a lot of income — sponsors to bring food in, we’ve had some local caterers to come in and prepare the food we got donated,” said Jamie Hall with the Henderson County Leadership class.

“Food at a farmers market only travels around 18 miles on average. Whereas the food at your grocery store, on average, travels about 2,500 miles,” White said.

The event starts at 5:30 p.m. and will be held inside the exhibition building at the Fairgrounds.

“Most of the tickets we’ve sold for tonight are farmers, so we’re really excited about that,” Hall said.

“It looks like we’re pushing about 300 on numbers, which was probably three times what we were initially shooting for,” White said.

Organizers say the farmers market would greatly serve the community.

“We’re going to bring revenue into the town, hopefully help out farmers too, be able to sell their produce in another way and have a strategic area,” Hall said.

The dinner was supposed to be held outside near the courthouse square, but rain meant they had to move inside for the night.