When the Rev. Randy Hyde called on his congregation to find new ways to reach out to their neighbors, a community garden was the first idea. But with too few members to do the heavy lifting, the congregation decided on a farmers market instead.
Three years later, the Hillcrest Farmers Market continues to grow, drawing shoppers from the Hillcrest neighborhood and beyond in search of locally grown produce, fresh baked goods, jams, jellies and more.
A Saturday morning at Pulaski Heights Baptist Church’s market is one filled with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and the scent of flowers. Parents stroll the sidewalk pushing baby strollers or holding hands with little ones. Dog walkers peruse the various tents and tables and an occasional bike rider stops by to have a look. They shop and mingle and sit on the church steps to visit.
It’s a sight that church member Judy Moses enjoys.
“It has far exceeded our expectations,” Moses said. “What we wanted to do is to introduce our church to the Hillcrest community and all of Little Rock if possible, and let them know that behind these closed windows and brick walls there is something, and we have done that. We have created a relationship with this community that we never thought was possible.”
For Hyde, the market was never meant to be a way to draw innew members. It was all about meeting the neighbors.
The congregation has called Hillcrest home for 100 years, but in that time the neighborhood and the church have changed. Church families who once lived in the neighborhood moved to other parts of the city.
Membership, which once topped well over 1,300, declined as families left and those who remained grew older. The church gradually lost touch with its neighbors as residents came and went.
These days, Sunday morning services draw about 130 worshippers, so finding a way to engage the community became a necessity.
“The church, historically, has been a neighborhood church,” Hyde said. “Back in the day when everybody and their cousin was going to church, Dr. [Harold] Hicks, he and his wife, Maureen, would walk up and down these streets named after trees and presidents and visit people. That’s how they grew this church.”
Hyde said he realized the importance of that while watching pedestrians outside the church one day.
“I saw a woman pushing a stroller, pulling a dog and obviously expecting another child, and I’m thinking that’s Hillcrest and we don’t know these people,” he said. “What can we do?”
The church missions team began thinking of ways to reach out, and with the help of a $20,000 grant from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, started Hillcrest Farmers Market in spring 2011.
Moses has been involved with the market from the beginning. She said the market started with seven vendors selling homegrown produce. As interest grew, more and more vendors joined, selling not only fruits and vegetables, but baked goods, cheese and coffee. Flowers, which Moses said were added this year, have proved to be especially popular.
“They have been a real hot commodity,” she said.
The market includes a children’s area with activities to keep the kids busy and happy while parents shop. Women from the church host a table with information about the church and answer questions from shoppers. Moses said volunteers don’t push shoppers with a religious message but they do invite visitors to come by for worship.
“This is a church that has a very traditional worship service but it has very relevant-thinking people,” she said. “We are not old fogies, although we are old. … We are not the traditional Baptists.”
The church is part of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a moderate Baptist group.
Moses said money raised from the rental of vendor space and for tents or tables goes into a farmers market fund at the church that will enable the congregation to sustain the market for years to come. All proceeds the vendors make are theirs.
“So many people who live in Hillcrest have said, ‘You’ve brought our community together,’” Moses said.
The Rev. Carolyn Staley, associate pastor of the church, said many of the market shoppers have helped out with some of the church’s mission projects. They’ve donated coats and school supplies for students and for teachers. Staley calls them “associate members.”
“They come every week [to the market] and they participate in our mission projects, such as providing towels for the [Vacation Bible School] swim camp and books for literacy in Helena,” she said. “We got as many from the market as from the church.”
The market is now open all year. Not all the vendors participate for the full 12 months but some do come with winter crops.
Joy Sturtevant, who owns Cedar Rock Acres in Scotland with her husband, Shel, has been selling vegetables, fruits and berries at the market since soon after it began. On Saturday mornings Shelsells their goods at the Argenta Farmers Market in North Little Rock and she comes to Hillcrest.
“We start off the season with strawberries, then move into raspberries. I sell blueberries and peaches for a friend of mine and I grow blackberries and a variety of vegetables,” Joy Sturtevant said. “We’re now in the field harvesting cantaloupes.”
The family also sells grapes, but raspberries have been the most popular item.
“We can’t keep enough,” she said.
Sturtevant said the market seems like home for the shoppers.
“It’s just a great market,” she said. “There always seems to be new people coming. The people bring their dogs and go shopping. It’s a comfortable neighborhood market.”
Church member Kelly Newberg helps manage the market and said it has been tremendously popular. She said there are 30 or more registered vendors, but not all are there every Saturday.
“It’s become a gathering place of people and neighbors,” she said.
Newberg said volunteers from the church help out at the hospitality table each week and others help after the market closes to make sure the building is ready for church services on Sunday.
“There’s been tremendous support from the congregation,” Newberg said. “I think it’s important to invest in the community and show you are a good neighbor. It’s our expression of how we want to be a Christ-like presence by providing a service and creating those relationships and offering support as we can.”
Newberg said as the congregation changes, so too must their outreach change.
“It’s important to find ways to serve through time, and this seems to be a welcome presence in the neighborhood and seems to be one of those moments that has taken on an energy and life of its own,” she said.
As the congregation prepares for its centennial celebration, which begins Friday, Hyde seems pleased by the success of the market in helping the congregation reach neighbors.
“Our goal was to let our neighbors see our church is here,” he said. “We’re not much for overt evangelism. We try to do it by influence and relationships and it has really enabled us to do that.”
The Hillcrest Farmers Market is open 7 a.m.-noon Saturdays in the spring and summer and 8 a.m.-noon in the fall and winter. The church is at 2200 Kavanaugh Blvd. Information and schedule of events for the centennial celebration are available online at phbclr.com.
Religion, Pages 14 on 08/17/2013