A Letter from Rick and Christine McNary
Co-founders of Shop Kansas Farms
Dear SKF members,
Although 1,136 people registered at the front door at the Celebration Centre in Lyons, we estimate more than 1,400 people attended our first Extravaganza! Since there are multiple entrances at two different facilities and parking is spread over several acres, we use an industry-standard 25% attendance add-on for non-registered attendees.
A special thank you to the City of Lyons (Chad Buckley), the Celebration Centre (Michelle White), Rice County Economic Development (Stacy Clark), Rice County Community Foundation (Karly Frederick) and Darin Clark of Sonic for the incredible amount of leadership they provided.
Also a shout out to the Green Shirt volunteers who made the day flow smoothly! Those shirts were sponsored by the three local banks listed below.
Those who led workshops are also deeply appreciated! The only complaint I heard was, "There are too many good ones and I want to attend them all but can't!"
For us, the best part was hearing farmers, ranchers and growers who had vendor booths say they had far more success than what they anticipated and many were SOLD OUT by the end of the day! We love that new friendships were made along the way.
To those of you who showed up with coolers and freezer bags to meet our farmers, ranchers, and growers and to shop, thank you! As one vendor said, "People came to buy, not browse!"
And, of course, the important question: When and where is the next one? Maybe the next one is in your city? This one was built as a scalable and replicable model, meant to be moved to any city in the state.
Please share this newsletter with the people who get things done in your city, county and region. We need you to help make it happen!
The Extravaganza exceeded our expectations and caused us to dream new dreams to fulfill our mission to, "connect you the the wonderful farm and ranch families of Kansas to purchase the food they grow."
Thank you for being a part of this movement,
Rick and Christine McNary
