The last Market day at El Mercado Mall will be Saturday, July 31st 3pm - 4:30pm. We will reopen at a DOWNTOWN location on October 16th during the same time slot.

Open letter sent to El Mercado Mall Management:

We deeply regret the decision of the El Mercado Mall Management not to continue their relationship with the Harlingen Farmers Market, which you relayed to us in a phone conversation on July 22nd.

Over the past 34 weeks the market has grown into a vibrant community event, attracting between 150 - 400 people every Saturday to your mall. We were hoping you would continue to appreciate the long-term advantages of this increased traffic and visibility. We are sorry to hear that tenants at the mall felt disturbed by the additional foot traffic and some of the products sold.

The Harlingen Farmers Market is a grass roots organization with no budget, working to establish a framework for healthy local and seasonal eating for the benefit of our local community. In order to grow the market and support the local farmers we do not charge any market fees, so there is no budget. We regret that we were not able to fulfill your financial and/or lease demands as it appears this might have contributed to your decision to tell the Harlingen Farmers Market to leave.

We will have to shut down the Harlingen Farmers Market for about two months as we prepare to move it to a downtown Harlingen location. We believe the downtown area will present our patrons with a greater choice of additional shopping opportunities, and we have become aware that business owners there are excited about taking advantage of the weekly audience generated by the Market.

At this point, we would like to thank the El Mercado Mall Management and its employees for their hospitality over the past 34 weeks. You have enabled us to establish the Harlingen Farmers Market. We appreciate your offer for a transition period, so Saturday, July 31, 2010 will be the last Harlingen Farmers Market at El Mercado Mall.

Regards,

Michael Mascha
Donna Navarro