Des Moines Farmers Market Manager Rikki Marohl was voted “Best Market Manager of the Year” at the recent Washington State Farmers Market Association annual conference.

This is the first year the association has given out such awards.

Marohl has been the manager since its inception five years ago, when Mayor Bob Sheckler held a summit asking community leaders to join him in a brainstorming session to see what could be done about bettering our community. At this summit, Rikki stepped forward to help start our Farmers Market.

“One of her best attributes is her ability to work with everyone; the vendors, our customers and community groups,” said Wayne Corey, market president. “She established a free program where community service groups could come to the market and inform people of their programs. Some of the groups she has helped are the Des Moines Food Bank, DM Garden Club, Highline College Foundation, Elder Watch Advocacy Program, the Legacy Foundation (supports parks & rec and senior services), religious organizations and the Rotary Club of Des Moines community charities, just to name a few.”

Over the years Rikki has been instrumental in the market’s success and continues to make it better, including helping to set up its own non-profit entity. During the 2010 season, with a new board of directors, she helped in “Marketing the Market” and reaching out to new farmers and vendors to give residents a richer market shopping experience that has resulted in an outstanding increase in market growth (over 30%) over the previous year.

She goes out of her way to find and help new farmers, and in some instances, showing them how to bring their products to market. In 2009 she took the new Burundi farmers under her wing when they were just getting started (read a story about them on The Seattle Times here). She is constantly seeking out new small vendors that need an avenue to sell their wares; just recently she helped the local Kenyon community sell their clothing products.

Corey adds “the Des Moines Farmers Market (2011 season opens June 4th) also received the high honor of being selected in the top six ‘Best Market of the Year’ out of 150 state wide markets. A large part of our success is due to the ever-supportive sponsors, a great bunch of volunteers and our outstanding board of directors who have dedicated much of their free time in seeing the market succeed and grow. Look for lots of new additions and improvements in the upcoming season.”

The 2011 Des Moines Farmers Market opens Saturday, June 4th, and runs from 10am – 2pm every Saturday until the end of October.

For more information, check out their website: http://dmfm.org.