Market Manager Relationships & Financial Incentives in D.C. Farmers’ Market Spaces
Interviewer(s): Interviewer
Interviewee(s): Respondent

Interviewer: Okay, I'm sure it's going there. Okay. So I guess, if you want to tell me-- I've told you a little bit about me. If you want to tell me a little bit about your background with market, and how you got involved, how long you've been doing it, and that sort of thing, that would be wonderful.

Respondent: So I married Michael, we don't deal with that [laughter] anniversary kind of stuff, but maybe 27 years ago. I don't know. I'd known who he was since I was 18, but he wasn't involved in farming at the time. But we re-met and fell in love 20 years later. But he was also a good friend of my brothers, so there was this really distant, vague, vague relationship. My area of expertise is co-op housing, and the way I got into co-op housing is I got an eviction notice in Glover Park and the owner just wanted to get rid of all of us. I just thought that was wrong, so it was an amazing experience. It's a very interesting time in Washington where a new law was about to come into place called the First Right to Purchase law for multifamily housing. It's a long, really fascinating history, so all of these landlords were scrambling to sell their buildings to get out from under that law, which would have delayed and caused enormous headaches for landlords. So our building was one of those buildings and we fought an amazing battle. We became a community, which-- we knew each other, different pockets of us knew each other, there were 63 units, but we didn't really feel like we were a community. And this experience and this fight brought us together, and we had absolutely wonderful support system and professionals helping us. And it was the first time ever something called a net-net lease principle was applied. So the co-op had no money, we were all poor, we had no money, and so usually this is done in commercial leases where you have a partnership. You have a limited partnership and a general partner, and the limited partner puts up the money to general partner. I forget which way it is [laughter].

Interviewer: It's okay.

Respondent: In effect, puts up a small amount but manages the property. And there's an amount attributed to that management aspect, which is then applied when-- we had a seven-year arrangement when we bought them out, and so whatever management fees cost then applied to that buy-out and then we got-- by then we had established ourselves we got loans. Anyway, what this did was it turned me into, everybody thought, an expert [laughter], and so people all over the city were having the same problems, it was a nightmare, and so that became my work. And at first, I was doing it voluntarily because I really did learn a lot, and then I got the best job I could have ever imagined at the time. And it was that we're helping people all over the city to save their homes and to become homeowners, which was something that most low-income people could never, ever imagine. So that propelled me into the housing world and it became my profession, and I worked for over 15 years at the National Association of Housing Cooperatives. I worked all over the country. And then I worked just for a little while with the cooperative house-- with Nagbury Investment, which is what it was called at the time. I think it has another name now. And then I left for a while and worked as a grants administrator for a small foundation, which actually intertwined a little with housing because a lot of the people were asking for money from the housing world. Actually, the Federation of Southern Co-farmers - I've forgotten the name - I became close with them. It was an organization of black farmers in the south that was formed as a co-op, and so they asked us for some money. So I just had a small stint in that and then moved to New York. And then I went back to NHC to fill out those 15 years. And then there was a change in leadership there, which always-- all the good people end up being forced out. All of us pretty much were fired so this person could destroy the organization, which he pretty much did. And then I worked for-- I became the-- I took care of all of Hadassah Lieberman's personal correspondence when her husband was running for president with Al Gore, and that was an amazing experience. And then I got the most incredible job again - again, I've been very blessed - where I worked for the Ford Foundation on a 10-year demonstration program helping low-income homeowners improve their homes to become more energy-efficient. And I worked with 11 non-profit junior organizations all around the country. It was just a fabulous job. So I did that for a while. In the meantime, of course, I had married Michael and we had our daughter, Adena, and he would-- I really had nothing to do with the farm or the markets because I really have my own life and my own world. And when the Ford Foundation project dried up, my husband was very sneaky and he slowly pulled me in [laughter]. So first I was-- in fact, I was actually administering the CSA in the Christmas trees, along with everything else I was doing. But then he called me one day and said, "You've got to come here. Somebody is sick and we have to do the market." And that sort of was the beginning. And then I just decided that the world was changing and nothing-- they didn't really need me anymore in the housing world, so I just allowed myself to get sucked in. So I would say-- so Michael has been farming for 45 years and his story is pretty fascinating in and of itself. He was a kid from Brooklyn, who lived in the projects and all of a sudden found himself castrating sheep and birthing, helping with breech births and all those. But that only lasted a year because owning animals is a 24/7 job. You can't-- you really-- Yeah. And it's your entire life and he just didn't feel that he was equipped to do that. So a friend, another new farmer, recommended that he start to grow vegetables and bring it to the Washington, DC, area. This was 45 years ago. And the first place he brought his vegetables was in Adams Morgan on a dirt lot which is now the plaza.

Interviewer: Yeah. Of course it's all change now [laughter].

Respondent: Well, they're trying. Yeah, it's really kind of a tragic thing, but that's an aside. But he decided that, first of all, he was going to grow completely organically. This is 45 years ago. No chemicals. And he wanted to make sure that his produce was affordable to everyone. And he purposely picked Adams Morgan at the time because it was a third white, a third black and a third Hispanic, and primarily low income. I mean, there were some-- everywhere there's pockets of people who have money, but that was his commitment. And to this day, he has not moved from that commitment. And also he wanted to be independent and not be subjected to bureaucracies and rules that he felt would get in the way of the main purpose that he wants to do. So Adams Morgan was probably, if we're not mistaken, the first real neighborhood farmer's market. There was Eastern Market and I think there was something else, somewhere else, but they were these big warehouse type things, but this was a neighborhood market. And his standards exceed USDA in organic. And because we kind of are our own managers, we don't have extra costs involved. It does prohibit us from doing-- we're not a 501(c)(3), so there are certain things we can't do, but we're okay with that. And we are able, we're eligible, to participate in all of the programs, which we do. One of the things that we can't do, it's called-- most of the markets now that have exploded, mushroomed out, are what's called managed markets. There's an organization that's set up, it has a staff, it has a market manager, it has rules, and we're called - I don't know where the term comes from - but he calls it a gray market. So we're sort of not set up that way, we're independent. And some of the things that distinguish us, that make it viable for us to manage, first of all, to make a living and also to keep our prices low, is this fact that we are very careful. So I'll give you an example.

Interviewer: Sure.

Respondent: So we were approached to help start the Columbia Heights Market, and they asked us to be kind of the anchor produce base. And we decided since we'd never experienced before and they were new, that we figured it would be okay, that it wouldn't be so complicated. So when they set up the market, they had three produce vendors, if I'm not mistaken. And the traffic is very important to understand. If you don't have a lot of traffic and you have the same vendors, all of you are going to suffer. But the nature of that area, which had been vitalized, supported the three vendors. We each sort of had little different twists. We were 100% organic, and others just had diversity of some-- one of them grew these gorgeous mushrooms-- everybody had-- and we managed, and we all got along. It was great, although the market manager at the time was not somebody that people enjoyed working with. And what happens with a farm, it's a real farm that does real marketing, is that there's oftentimes when either your produce is low or like last year our garlic did not work out, so Michael has a network of neighbors that he works with and we also have a partnership with an orchard. Although Michael has an orchard, it isn't enough and it's so organic that people-- most people, unless they know what they're doing, wouldn't buy those or usually don't buy those. They have to look a little nicer. So we have a partnership with an IPM orchard in Gettysburg that we've been working with for 40 years. So they started to say x percentage of your produce has to be-- which on the one hand, I understand and I completely support because a lot of the markets that you see are not real markets. They go and buy produce from different places--

Interviewer: And bring it to their stand and sell it as theirs?

Respondent: Yeah, and it looks like-- and we do get certain staples-- like when we're off of potato and onion season, we do get produce from other farmers. But Michael is absolutely careful that they're local, that they're either IPM or as low pesticide as possible. So we're very careful about that. And until the season is in full swing, it is harder. And also, we only have one very large high tunnel right now and they're so expensive. I don't know that we could ever-- we do have some greenhouses and-- so he has some farmers that he does-- and we tell people. If someone says, "Is this yours?" We'll say, "Oh no, that's Rick's," or whatever. So things were fine at the Columbia Heights Market until the third year where we decided it was too much because we had the Adams Morgan one going, we had this one going. It was just getting to be too much for us. So we decided that we were going to-- we didn't like the oversight and having to justify our existence in ways that we didn't appreciate. We decide we weren't going to do it. So we tell them and they begged us. They really begged us to come back. And so we're saps, and so we said, "Oh, all right." So we had our whole CSA setup, you have to-- in February or in January, actually, you have to know how many seeds to buy, staff, all this stuff. So we incorporated Columbia Heights into our process. And when we got there the first day, they had added three more produce vendors. Three, so there were six including one from southern Virginia that was very, very large. I mean it was-- they had something like six or ten high tunnels, so they could be growing in December, so they would have tomatoes and our tomatoes don't come in until August. So we sat there twiddling our thumbs and we were furious and the other two produce vendors left also. We were honorable-- they left at the end of the season too, but we lost an enormous amount of money that year, but we were loyal to our CSA members. And the way a CSA works is that you've already spent their money, so it would have been an enormous loss to us to have to give back their money. So we stuck it out and then we tried to-- we asked to have a meeting with the board, they were really not nice to us. And all that's changed, by the way. There's a whole new-- this is the past. So we said we're never doing this again. So our markets, we have-- and actually, we had a 15 year market at NIH and the same thing happened there. We started that So we have a viable, wonderful market at NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Michael's been there for 25 years, he has loyal customer, and it's just wonderful people there. And then we just stopped NIH. We did an attempt, we were invited to try to do something as part of agriculture I think it was, or the FDA, I forget which one, and it just did not work. Because you have to realize that people commute and so they're not going to buy a lot of produce. They're going to buy a peach or something like that. But we did try, we tried we were very willing to try, it didn't work. And then we have Brookland, Tuesdays from 4:00 to 7:00, and we've been there for over 20 years now and we have incredible loyal customers. And even with the Saturday new market that they started in that arts section, they're two different days of the week and we offer different things and we have an incredible loyalty factor. And we'll talk about that next because there's a reason we have the loyalty factor, which I think is a lot about what markets are or should be. And then we have, of course, Adams Market, which is our flagship. It's our main one. He's been there for 45 years and we're probably going to be in the same place at least for this year, and then we've been invited to be at just two blocks down to continue the market without any threat of being lost. But there's a lot of issues around that right now, so we're not sure exactly what's going to happen, but we know we'll be there because the community demands that we're there.market and then they just didn't honor our request to have other vendors but not produce vendors.

Interviewer: Yeah. And I think that community piece is something I'm really interested in.

Respondent: Well, we'll get into that.

Interviewer: Okay

Respondent: So that's how I got sucked in. So by the time-- I don't even remember the year. By the time my Ford Foundation work was completely finished till now, so then I got sucked in more and more. So I'm doing pretty much all of-- I don't do the accounting work, but I do all the weekly accounting work. I take care of all the CSA's, and our Christmas tree stint is a pretty intense time and it's very time-consuming. People think, "How difficult could it be?" We don't subscribe to any of the online formats for anything because I think one of the things that's really - I hope it's not unique but - that is special about our market is that it's very personal. And that's really what, I think, in addition to our produce, which is pretty high quality, I think that's what distinguishes us from some of the larger markets that may have a lot of transition and stuff. That we're loyal, we stay put, and we have relationships with our customers.

Interviewer: And what does that look like? Like that's--

Respondent: The relationship?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Respondent: So those customers that come back, that know you've been there for 25 years, that have known Michael for 40 years, what are those relationships and communications look like with customers? Especially the ones you know and especially around either Produce Plus or Matching or just helping someone out. What is [inaudible]? So let me tell you how we do our-- so I'll do those programs-- let me talk about first our relationships first because I think that helps frame what kind of a market we really are.

Interviewer: Yeah, I think that's what I'm interested in.

Respondent: A lot of it has to do with personality. If you have somebody who is like a manager who says, "What's your name? Okay, fine. Here." If you have that kind of a person - which isn't a bad thing, it's just is a different approach - that's one thing. Michael has this incredibly magnetic personality. He's an amazing storyteller, and he's funny, and he's very political, and he's really devoted and committed to his farming ideals and principles and to his customers. So in June, if you're around, you come to our market on Saturday or Tuesday and he talks to everybody, everybody talks to him. He's funny, he gives out samples, he talks about the food and just engages. So I'm at the register-- we usually have two-- our farm manager, Charmaine, who takes care-- have you met her?

Interviewer: Yeah. She was so wonderful.

Respondent: She can never leave. It's in their contract [laughter]. She's [inaudible]. She could never leave.

Interviewer: She was lovely [laughter].

Respondent: Well, I don't need to say anything more. We're done here [laughter]. So you get it now?

Interviewer: Yes.

Respondent: So the spirit on the farm is guided by Charmaine. And really anybody that meets her, need I say more? So, yeah, we do have problems, we've had problems, but she creates this home-sense there. And it's very very hard work, but I don't know how she does it. And so that translates into our markets. So all of our CSA members adore Charmaine [laughter]. They just adore her, and they can't wait to see her every Saturday or Tuesday, because the same thing happens on Tuesdays. And then I don't know how this happened and I cry when I think about it, but there's an organization called Avodah, which it generates out of the Jewish community, but it's like AmeriCorp. They modelled it, except for one very important thing, out of a AmeriCorp, where they partner with different organizations and they share resources. So Avodah raises money for half of their minimum wage a year, and then the organization provides the other half so that they have an extra staff person every year. A very devoted, committed staff person. One of the major difference is with Avodah and AmeriCorp is that they don't live together. So a bunch of kids your age, because it's after college, come together and one of them works on health, one of them works at Miriam's Kitchen, one works at Save the Children, one works at [inaudible], and they all then, because they live together, share--

Interviewer: Experience?

Respondent: --experiences. Oh, wait a minute, I have a family that I need to send to you.

Interviewer: Okay [laughter].

Respondent: Yeah. And then they have speakers come in, and they have retreats. So they get a very rounded, broad thing, but they all live together. I don't remember, I'm confused now whether it happened before or after our daughter became part of Avodah, but we offered to supply their houses with food. So it probably happened before Adena because Julia was before Adena, yeah. So initially we found somebody who donated some money to help defray the cost, and then-- that's right, she did that for several years before Adena. So we had a person who every year donated a portion of it. And so the Avodah kids would come with their shopping carts to the market, and they get first just a CSA share, but then we'd piled an enormous amount of other stuff for them. And it was an incredible gift because they're doing minimum wage, they're doing pennies. And so this was food for the weak, or more. So this one year, this woman Julia Khan-- did you talk to her yet? She's someone you should talk to. She's amazing.

Interviewer: Okay [laughter]. Send me her email.

Respondent: She came to Columbia-- they were picking up at Columbia Heights in the beginning because the houses are close by Columbia Heights. And I don't remember what happened, but all of a sudden we got really busy. And Julia was there, and she said, "Well, I did farmers markets in California." I said, "Well, just jump in." She hasn't left, it's been over six years. So Julia would come every week, and then when she left Avodah she wasn't sure what she was going to do. She lived with us for a while, she lived on the farm for a while. She works at the market every week. And then she moved to New York for a while, which was very disturbing [laughter], and then she came back and she's back. She's back for good. Either the next year or the same year, I forget where Lindsey was. Same thing with Lindsey, except Lindsey didn't live on the farm or live with us, she just comes to the market every week. Tamarah, but she now lives in Chicago, but she would do the same thing. And every year, we get different Avodahnics. That they work five days a week in these nonprofits, they do all these hard work. They wake up on Saturday mornings and come work at the market. So our market is filled with these amazing women, and Julia speaks Spanish, Lindsey speaks Spanish. So we have this-- there's this incredible relating that goes back and forth. They talk about recipes, they talk about kids when the kids-- Julia will take the kids while their mother is shopping. So we create this environment of comfort, and--

Interviewer: And what role does the Spanish play in that?

Respondent: Okay, so that's where-- so many of our customers are WIC recipients who speak Spanish. One year, this was hysterical, one of our staff-- and we also have staff that work [inaudible], so everybody gets to know the farm workers because they rotate. They get to get the farm workers and the constant people. So one year, [inaudible] this woman, a WIC recipient, who was Chinese. She only spoke Mandarin or-- and one of our farm workers had spent a year in the Peace Corp in China and so was able to relate to her. So what Julia and Lindsey and anybody else who comes down who speaks Spanish, they create the relationship as best as possible with the Spanish community, so they keep coming back.

Interviewer: They the women from Avodah, or are they the customer coming back [laughter]?

Respondent: Both.

Interviewer: That's lovely, yes.

Respondent: What they get, they volunteer, but they just fill up their backpacks with food for the week. We have a relationship with Chris, who's the baker that we have with us, for also 15 years or more. So we just exchange food with each other. Just as an aside, I want to say another piece. One of the reasons why we want to, I hate the word, to control or manage is because of our experiences with outside managers who didn't honor and respect the vendors enough to understand that you have to know the amount of traffic. You don't create unnecessary competition that deflects everyone instead of helps promote. So because I manage the market-- first of all, at Adams Morgan, physically, there is no space. So that's the end of that. We had two farm vendors and the reason we worked together so well is because Randy's is an almost 500 member CSA from the neighborhood. So he relies mostly on the CSA, but he also sells to customers as well. But if there had been a third produce vendor there, all of us wouldn't do it. So we don't let another vendor-- well, we couldn't anyway. The same thing with Chris. Chris has loyal customers. They call him up at night and say, "I need--" But if there were two bakers there, it would dilute both of them. We just added a meat person because there's no meat person. She just did it for the last two months starting in November, December, so she was there for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Interviewer: That's a hard time to start.

Respondent: Yeah, so she to build herself up. And then, of course, there's Remy who sells flowers who's been there as long as Michael. And everybody knows Remy, everybody sits down and talks to Remy, everybody knows Remy. So that's what happens, that's why we work so well together. Now, Brooklyn is a little different because we have more space for different kinds of vendors. We could never have two produce vendors there, there's just not enough traffic, or two bread people. So we look for people who might have something unusual, or something different.

Interviewer: Honey or--

Respondent: No, we sell honey. No.

Interviewer: Oh, great [laughter]. Even better.

Respondent: No, but what was the other one? Oh, she was selling hot sauce. It didn't work out because it's a very small niche kind of market. But what we do do at both places is, essentially, what you said, is that we get non-profits that ask us if they could have a table offered a week, a day. And non-profits we welcome. So there was one group from GW. Do you know this group?

Interviewer: I don't know, maybe.

Respondent: It's a group-- they were selling soaps for a women's collective in -- I forget which African country now [laughter].

Interviewer: Oh no.

Respondent: Yeah. So we had them come, actually-- oh also, I didn't mention. For a year, we were given a wonderful opportunity to be in Georgetown and so we had Chris come and the meat lady and Remy, but it was only for a year and it was very bad because our customers were wonderful, we loved those people, but every neighborhood's different. It's funny, people in Georgetown go away for two months. So we just did not have the traffic--

Interviewer: And the reliability.

Respondent: Yeah, but I really love-- and some of those customers are coming now to Adams Morgan, because they--

Interviewer: Good. I want to come visit you [laughter].

Respondent: Well, what a lot of people say about the Dupont Circle Market is that it's gotten so big that it's very congested, and it's unfortunate because I think-- at least I can only speak for the produce vendors and for people like Chris, you want to have time to develop a kind of relationship. I call it a little universe. Saturday is like a little universe, where people who you love but you never see during the week unless it's by accident. It's your little world and people become very familiar to you, and you watch their children grow and you watch the babies come out of the bellies, and you watch the dog come from a puppy, and you meet their parents that come to visit and their cousins that come to visit. It's a very insular moment in time, is how I like to call it. And I consider those people my friends, even though we don't do friend things. And some of those relationships last 10 minutes on a Saturday, but they're very rich. So that's sort of what we do. And I've heard, I've never been to the Dupont Circle Market so I don't want to speak for it, but I think that it's gotten so crowded and it's a lot more prepared food kind of things, that there isn't as much opportunity to nurture those relationships, except if they've already been established. So a lot of people-- and also, it's become very expensive. So we don't know what their prices are and we don't purposely undercut, we just want to make sure that people can afford to buy. So now moving on to-- we take WIC, SNAP, Produce Plus and things have changed a lot. And also this-- we're so saturated with farmer's markets now that people are--

Interviewer: In the city?

Respondent: Yeah. So Adams Morgan used to be the highest intaker of WIC coupons. It no longer is now. But last year, we were invited by the Ward 8 Farmers Market, which is a, I know people don't like to use this word, food desert, but it is.

Interviewer: Out towards Congress Heights, right?

Respondent: Well, I was only there once. I had no idea where I was. It's in between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. It's in a school parking lot.

Interviewer: Yeah, on Mississippi Ave.

Respondent: I don't know if that's the address.

Interviewer: I think it is.

Respondent: Nathan?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Respondent: Yeah, Nathan. So they invited, and we were very honored that they, out of all-- maybe we're looking at it-- or maybe they tried all of these other people and nobody else said anything [laughter]. I don't know, but we were honored and we figured out a way to make it work because it's very complicated and it's very far away. Now we have to bring two trucks and we fill a truck with all the produce and stuff and then they go off to Ward 8. And what's interesting about-- so here's what happens. So people get coupons from whatever outlets they get them from. Produce Plus is generated at the markets, their market sites. And that's good and bad because if you're not a market Produce Plus site, pick up site, you don't get the business. So we were very upset because nobody comes to Adams Morgan, or nobody comes to Brookland. So they figured out a way, and we were so grateful to get someone coming to Brookland. So we did a very nice but finite, you have to understand you can't-- a farmers market cannot rely on this. And also the amounts have been drastically cut, so we can't rely on those, but we appreciate the fact that we can offer healthy produce to a wide variety of people. So now that we have a site at Brookland, we noticed a lot of people don't use them at our market, but a lot of people do. So a lot of people will get the Produce Plus coupons and then use them next week or some other time or whatever. So it's not like a cost and effect thing. It isn't like a one to one. We have nobody at Adams Morgan, which is a shame because we're going to try to work on it. We'd like Mary's House-- we'd love to see if we could get Mary's Center or Mary's House, I forget which one, because it's volunteer, unfortunately. It's volunteer, fortunately and unfortunately. It would really make a big difference to people in the community if we could get one there. So we're going to try to talk to them about that. But we do get them and we do get the WIC coupons and the senior coupons and whatever. The only thing that we really don't get at all is SNAP. So the--

Interviewer: The EBT transactions, yeah.

Respondent: The EBT transactions. And we don't know why, we have absolutely no idea. We have this one woman, my favorite customer - I mean, they're all my favorite customers [laughter] - but there's one woman who-- Well, she uses it, and at Brookland there might be one or two other people, but it's not just worth our while. And if we don't remember which year we're at, it was a three-year subsidy program, but if we have to start paying food ourselves, we're not going to because it's just not worth it. So this is what we do. So here's one of the disadvantages of not being a managed market with 501(c)(3), is if there was a matching program to the district that these tokens and they're redeemable, so it doubles upto $10, I think is the way it worked. So in the years before Produce Plus, we just did it anyway, and so we ate that $10. The way we did it though is that you had to at least spend $10 to get—

Interviewer: The return on it.

Respondent: Yeah. In other words, we're not going to give you food for free. So it got complicated because if you spend $5, you have to pay for it. If you spend $10, you pay $5. If you spend 15, you'll get the $10. So you have to-- we didn't want anybody just to get something for nothing. So that's how we did. Because if we lost all that money-

Interviewer: Yeah. And how did, I guess, your interactions with customers around those look? So when you were trying to explain that system to people, or like--

Respondent: It was complicated. And it was also-- some of our staff was also a bit confused, and we had to figure how to work it out. But--

Interviewer: Can you remember an experience talking through either that matching program with a customer or even on the side of Produce Plus like working with customers around either that confusion or an excitement around it, or just any experience that has really resonated with you.

Respondent: So I'm confused about who's eligible for which programs. It seems to me as though everybody's eligible for all the programs, but I'm not really sure because I don't understand why somebody who gets WIC didn't get Produce Plus or didn't know about Produce Plus or I don't know. Or why you have WIC, but not SNAP? I never had enough time to really sit down and focus to understand that. So we would have people who would come up to us with their WIC coupons and this is once-- now, you have to understand, this new issue started once Produce Plus came in. Because once Produce Plus came in, we decided we can't do this anymore. We're just losing too much money and now that Produce Plus is here, which gives those people that extra $10, then we felt better about abandoning that program that was our voluntary program. So people would come to us after the Produce Plus program came in with WIC coupons and say, "Well, don't you give up to $10 free." So we had to explain that and some people were angry, which-- and if they wanted to go to a different market, of course, they could. Some people thought with Produce Plus you could get $20 for $10 and we said, "No, no, no, no, no. We don't do that [laughter]. No." And with the SNAP program we did not do that. And then I learned that you don't do it with-- the SNAP program wasn't-- I mean it was so complicated. There should be just one program. It doesn't really make sense to me, but look I don't rule the world.

Interviewer: Yeah. And how do you have that conversation with someone? What tools do you use? How do you navigate that?

Respondent: We talk. We just talk and we have had one-- all right, I'll give you an example of a really negative thing that happened. So this one woman expected to get the $10. So she bought a lot of stuff. And when I explained to her, she got very angry at me and she walked away in a huff. Okay, but she came back the next week. And so I said, "I want to just make sure you understand, blah, blah, blah." And she somehow-- because I think, one of the things that happens with us is, because our prices are decent, I'm not going to say they're cheap, because our prices are decent, you get-- it's almost like you get that $10 advantage anyway. And she figured that out. She understood that what she was going to buy from us would have cost her almost twice as much somewhere else, and that's why she came back. And she was much nicer and we were all okay. I have one woman who was so nasty to me. I mean, she was just a regular customer. She was so nasty to me, people that were behind her in line were like-- and so finally, Michael came over and said, "What's the problem?" And--

Interviewer: That facial expression, yeah [laughter].

Respondent: I said, "Michael, I cannot serve this customer." So he said to her, "What's going on?" And she was nasty to him. And he just said, "Excuse me, ma'am. I'm sorry, but we can't serve you." So we've had things like that. And then we've had-- so this is what we do, which is - Michael thinks I'm nuts but I don't care. So let's say they've gotten all this stuff and they have-- with coupons from Produce Plus or whatever, and it's $7 over. I'll say, "Just bring it back to me next week." And some do and some don't. And it's not just with customers, it's everyone. So somebody comes to me at Adams Morgan or Brookland and they forgot their wallet or their husband was going to show up with the money and he got held up somewhere, so I'll say, "Just bring it next week." And this is part of who we are, and we do it because we value the relationship with our customers. And my philosophy is you cannot leave without what you need. And so the fun example that makes people laugh or something, is that, "You're having ten people over for dinner and you realized you didn't have this and you run out and you forgot-- you don't have any more time to buy it anywhere else, so just take it and come back next week." We had a woman, it's one of my favorite stories, we had a woman who I did that with, she was pregnant, and she was like, "Ooh [laughter]." So I said, "Don't worry, just bring it next week." This was towards the end of the season. I never saw her again. So the whole year goes by-- oh, there's the baby [laughter]. So the whole year goes by and June comes along and a woman comes up to me and she goes, "I owe you whatever it was," I said, "What?" And then she goes, "Yeah. Remember I was pregnant and then-- here's my baby and--" I said, "You thought about this all year?" And she goes, "Yeah." And I go, "[inaudible]." That made it worth-- I mean, it was such a beautiful thing. And then somebody else would come up to me and say, "Oh, I owe you $20." "Oh, yeah, you do?" "Yeah, remember three weeks ago?" "Now I remember [laughter]." So that makes it worth it. And, yes, we do lose money, and, yes, there are people who are not honorable and I just say it's on their conscience. That's all.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Respondent: And then, the other thing that we do-- so the Avodah kids come and we've developed this amazing relationships with them and so we get to know our customers. So we know that this person works in African economics and this person works on this. And so when the Avodahnics come along, you have to meet this person and you have to-- and so, we do all these networking also. So like that's what I mean by creates this community. And, believe me, I hate up getting up Saturday morning. I can't believe Michael got me doing this [laughter]. And what's interesting about the religious thing, I used to go to services every Saturday morning because that's what I wanted to do and you get this spiritual whatever. So Michael one day said to me, "You know, Esther, we have a family business and it's a luxury to be Jewish during the farm season., or be religious," whatever he said. And that hit me in a very interesting way. I mean, if you were an orthodox Jew and you lived on a farm, your cows have to be milked. You can't not milk your cows on Saturdays. So I've never been comfortable about it, but I get it. I mean, I do. It's a family business. But on the other hand, when I say it's a family business, our farm is worker-run. So that has a very different effect on everything. When that produce comes down and one of our farm workers picked it, wracked it or whatever, packaged-- we don't package things or wrap, but put it in the box to be-- she or he has a connection to them. And then she sees the person who's buying it and then she says, "What are you going to do with it?" And then the people around start talking about recipes or we have a [inaudible]. "What is a [inaudible] and how do you use it? What do you do?" So we create that. And we joke with Justin - Justin is our other farm worker who lives on the farm full-time and I'm sure Charmaine has talked about Justin - and we joke because tomatoes, he's very protective of our tomatoes and he names every one of them [laughter]. We joke about that. But our staff has a deep connection to the work they do. And we try to encourage our customers to come up to the farm for farm visit day May 1st, Sunday. Write it down. Because when you see the farm, you get it in a very different way. "That's where my lettuce comes from. That's where my zucchini comes from. That's where my tomatoes come from. Oh, that's the bee hive." And then when you see it in our stand, you make the connection and it's a very different kind of relationship. So we try to get people to come up. The Avodah kids come up en masse. People come up with their kids and they see. It's just a very-- and then they talk to each other and they create this-- and that's why it's so critical for us to have this kind of-- again, I wish there was a better word than control, connection to the market. And so that's sort of how we operate. And we don't have somebody telling us different things and having to add percentages on because we have to support the market. We like it to be small and intimate. We don't like being part of some large production. This may sound a little bit like snobbery, but a farmers' market, to us, is that.

Interviewer: Me too.

Respondent: What I call like Dupont Circle and the Brookland one and U street and Eastern, I call the destination markets. And it's one of our-- even our market here in Takoma Park, "Oh, let's spend the afternoon at the market." You look at jewelry, you get something to eat, you get a smoothie, you look at pottery. It's a wonderful afternoon, especially on a day like today, and that's fine. That's completely fine, but we are a farmers market here. I don't want jewelry and pottery and [inaudible] there. It's a farmers market. You go to the farmers market to get your food. We have produce, bread, now we have meats and flowers. Those are the stands. In our other markets, when we can, we'll have other things too. But Adams Morgan is unique in that way. And actually, NIST is unique in that way. The NIST farmers market is Michael and Chris.

Interviewer: Yeah, it's just the two of you.

Respondent: It's just the two of us.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Respondent: And everybody's happy because bread or a scone or something wonderful like that and your produce. One of Michael's issues about some of the markets like the one we tried to do at the FDA, I forget which one, is that--

Interviewer: USDA, yeah.

Respondent: USDA, thank you. We're not a vendor where you're downtown and you buy a soda, or you buy an apple or a candy bar. We could never survive. A farm is a farm and it needs to sell its produce in order to survive. So when people come to a market, a farmers market - and every one of them will tell you this maybe in different ways - and somebody just buys a peach or an apple, I mean it's fine for them, but it really is difficult for the farmer. It really is. And we're all gracious and nice about it. What I do, if somebody comes and just wants an apple, I say, "Go enjoy it." I don't even charge them for it because it's nothing. The spirit of the place helps build up your clientele and so what Michael has done at NIST is that people buy their week's worth of produce at NIST, which is why it's so successful. If people just came down and bought an apple for lunch, we couldn't have stayed there for the 20-some odd years we've been there. People buy their produce. And one of the differences is that people drive there. I know this is a big-- or a place like Adams Morgan or Takoma Park, where you just walk two blocks. These are critical differences. If you have to keep your food out in the summer, even though our places are air-conditioned, but still. Except when you buy the basil.

Interviewer: I know.

Respondent: And then you have to carry all this stuff home on the metro or the bus, you don't do it. But if you are located in a way where you can buy your weeks worth of produce, or most of it anyway, that's a critical difference and why different markets have different characters and survive or not survive differently, and why there's so much transients. The amount of work-- you probably know because you have a farm experience, but many people who've never really experienced working-- we tell people, "you want to take a vacation? Get away from the city? Come work on the farm for a week." Their lives change because--

Interviewer: I'll come work on the farm for you for a week [laughter].

Respondent: You're more than welcome. But what people don't appreciate, and it's not their fault and I'm not-- is what goes into getting that apple or that tomato to the market where you can just pick up one tomato.I think it's very easy to forget how hard the actual physical labor of being in the dirt and holding tools and weeding continuously, and mulching, and weighing, and stacking, and putting things in boxes, and what that looks like and how hard that actually is to get the food on your table. And I think it's easy to forget, especially in the city where you're not surrounded by that and where there's no opportunity to do that. But yeah, that piece of labor is so important. I'll tell you, our lower field is a very long field and I would say maybe it goes from here almost into Takoma Park, like almost to Mark's Kitchen. It is a very long field. So I went up-- I don't usually go up to the farm except for farm visit day because all my work is here and when we were raising our daughter everything was down here, and also it's hard work and I can't do it [laughter]. So but- Not everyone wants to do it, yeah. That's fine. So one, it might've been, April, it was still early so maybe there was only one or two farm workers up there by then - maybe it was March then. And Michael said, "Oh, come on. I'm just going to be up for the day. We will just spend the night and then we will come home." So he says, "Okay, I want you to do some work." So we go down to the lower field and it was just the beginning. The zucchini had been planted, but they were like this. Little ones. With organic farming, you weed by hand, or with very careful tools. Nothing power tools. A small hand claw, sure.So he said, "Why don't you weed this [inaudible] weed?" So he showed me the difference between the weeds and the plants so I wouldn't mess up, and I started doing it. And I didn't have a seat to sit on, it was very hard work. So when I got to a certain point, I looked back and it was so beautiful. I mean the earth is rich and brown and then all you have is this one beautiful green plant surrounded by this beautiful earth, and I'm going, "Wow, I'm wonderful." Then I look ahead and I see all the weeds and all the stuff. I mean, it took me probably a good part of the entire morning, so it must be four hours, just to do that one row. So finally Michael comes down and I said, "Look, Michael. Look what I did? Aren't I wonderful? Aren't I amazing? Now what?" And he goes, "The next row." And I went , "Oh my God, I can't do it." So he sent me up to a smaller field where I did something else because it was-- and that was the moment that I understood. And I have this incredible respect for our staff and for any-- I get it, and I also have a whole different understanding of agribusiness because in agribusiness there is no farmer. There's just executives, and they're not even out there, and you have a foreman, and you have paid migrant labor who don't have a connection. And it's a real distinction and tragedy that's happened, that our cities aren't built around-- I mean that farms weren't encouraged around cities, and so that produce would have an easy way of getting there, and you learn things like eating seasonally. Which it's interesting, I just saved the last four or five butternut squashes from our fall crop. I cooked them, and then I take them out, and I put them in freezer bags. So now, I have – so that in May, if I want to make something with a winter squash –

Interviewer: You have some packed away.

Respondent: I can do it but that's because I have refrigeration. It came local, it came from here, and not everybody has the luxury of-- we're very romantic, my husband and I, and when our daughter was little for one year, for my birthday, he gave me a dustbuster. She was throwing things all over the floor and everybody thought that was a horrible gift. I thought it was one of the most considerate gifts you could give.

Interviewer: I think that's beautiful [laughter].

Respondent: And three years ago now, because we had so much produce and I was starting to freeze a lot of stuff, he bought me a stand-up freezer. So now I have berries, and zucchinis, and squashes, and other fruits, strawberries, blueberries, peaches, that I could use. I can make a peach cobbler in the winter [laughter]. So we've just lost all of that, and we've lost what it takes to bring it because you can go to the supermarket and buy anything, anytime, anywhere. And on the one hand, that's good. It's progress. I'm not--

Interviewer: It's convenience. Yeah.

Respondent: But it wasn't done in ways that helped us understand and also be compassionate about the earth. And if everything always has to be in season, then you have to use chemicals.

Interviewer: There is one more thing I want to ask you. So I want to ask, we've talked about customers, and we've talked about labor, and I think the last thing I kind of want to focus on is the acceptance piece of financial incentives, and what that looks for you as farmers. So when you're at market, and you're accepting a Produce Plus voucher, or you're accepting SNAP, although you said that's a pretty rare occasion, but the WIC vouchers or Senior FNMP, what those interactions look like on your end? So with other staff members, or with other people just working the stand or working the market, what does that look like, I guess, for you?

Respondent: It doesn't look very different from anybody else. We don't treat anybody differently. And, in fact, we have sometimes more fun [laughter]. I'll give you an example.

Interviewer: Yes, I would love that.

Respondent: So, there's this thing called-- oh God, what is it called? Bitter melon. It's green. It looks like a-- kind of a pimpled light cucumber. It is bitter, I mean bitter.

Interviewer: Okay [laughter]. What can you do with it?

Respondent: Well, that's the interesting part. So, there's certain Asian and Hispanic communities that use it all the time and they know how to cook it [laughter].

Interviewer: Okay [laughter]. So it's my own ignorance and privilege, I suppose [laughter].

Respondent: Any time somebody buys a quantity of something unusual, we jump on them. We go, "What do you do with it? How do you cook it?" So, Julia, thank goodness, the Spanish speaker, we get all kinds of tips how to cook it. We get people talking to each other, "What is that?" And then we learn from them, so then when somebody comes, "What do you do with this?" "Oh, a customer just told us blah, blah, blah." So we don't treat anybody differently. If they're short just the way everybody else is or anybody I'd do the same thing, I don't care. it doesn't matter if they're a WIC recipient or not, but we also know that we can learn a lot from those folks because-- like the bitter melon situation. So, some people buy lots of hot peppers and they're never hot enough. We had a woman who-- we called her the not hot enough lady [laughter], she would actually take a bite right in front of me--

Interviewer: Just to check it [laughter]?

Respondent: And she'll say, "Not hot enough [laughter]." So, what do you do with it? How do you use it? What do you do-- you can freeze peppers, you know that?

Interviewer: Yes.

Respondent: I learned that from a customer, I didn't learn that from myself. I learned so much from all of our customers regardless of what they are, whether they cash-- we started taking credit cards, which I really feel awkward about but I am doing it anyway. And if they give me a coupon or a check, I don't care, and everyone-- and like I said, the thing about us it's so much fun is that I can tell if somebody's buying a certain assortment of something, that they have something in mind, that they're going to making a stew or something. And so I always ask, and if they don't speak English, I get Julia to help me ask. And we also do things with children. We give away little apples to all the children because we-- and when a kid particularly likes a particular vegetable, we give them more, because we want to encourage that. And we engage the kids also. They tell us things. I'll give you another example. So there's some people that I don't know what it is in their upbringing that gives them this feeling of entitlement, so every so often you'll come across somebody who will think that you're supposed to serve them, or not beg your own stuff. They stand there like, "Why aren't you doing this for me," kind of a thing. And you tolerate those people but you kind of go, "Ugh," you know [laughter]? And what's interesting is that what I just described to you, is equally some subsidy program folks and regular people. And when that happens, it was very interesting--

Interviewer: It's not incredibly surprising [laughter].

Respondent: It was very interesting because I got really internally pissed at somebody who was behaving that way. And it's easy to make judgments. "Oh, those people. They get things for free. They're entitled." And then right after her some bitch [laughter], obviously well-to-do, did the same thing. I said, "We are all alike. There's no difference." And then there's these incredible women-- at Brookland, there's some women who are Produce Plus recipients who volunteer. So they come to our market all the time. They volunteer and then they buy. But they get-- they also are able to. There are some people who can't because they have children or they have jobs. So there is all kind of reasons. But they figured out in their lives and so they contribute to the-- and then, I have-- and so in a similar vein with somebody who is not a subsidy-type person. If the person in front of them couldn't pay for something or-- so I gave it to them, they'll give me the money. They didn't have to. So, there's all this wonderful stuff that goes on at our markets.

Interviewer: Yeah. It sounds like a magical place.

Respondent: It's also hard work. It's also annoying. I can't stand getting up in the morning and it's hot. It's disgustingly hot a lot of the time and I just don't want to be there. And then, someone wonderful comes and gives you a smile. There's a woman-- I love this woman. She's from Mexico. She's been one of our customers-- I can't even tell you how many years. And she's like the cook in the family and she lives with her mother and other family members. There's some children and her husband, probably. It's like a melded family. I mean, an intergenerational family. And she's just one of these-- she has this sweet face. I don't know. You can sort of look in people's eyes and see their souls. So [laughter], one year, I can't believe. I was so-- she's usually there in June. I mean the minute we open, she's there. She didn't show up. It was gnawing at me. I look for her and sometimes I get distracted looking for her and I just didn't-- really scared that-- oh, my God. And I don't know her name. There's no way I could-- and I'll never see her again. So June goes by, and middle of July, she shows up. And I was taking care of a customer [laughter], and I just abandoned the customer, I leaped up, and I gave her this hug, and I said, "What did you do? How dare you [laughter]?" Everybody's looking at me [laughter]. And then she explained to me that usually in June, she and her mother go to Mexico. So now, when I don't see her for that month or month-and-a-half, I'm not freaked out. And then, one year-- so she was telling us about these tamales that she made, and we're all going, "Yum!" The next week, she came with enough for all of us.

Interviewer: 30 tamales? Yeah [laughter].

Respondent: It was just amazing. We didn't ask her to do that. And we talk recipes all the time. The other thing that we do, for everyone, is we have a lot of seconds. They call them the ugly fruit. There are all kinds of names now that they give to them--

Interviewer: Aesthetically imperfect, yeah. Sure.

Respondent: We've only been doing this for 40 years, right [laughter]? So, if you're going to make a sauce, or a cobbler, or something that doesn't require the pretty-looking fruit and they're more-- I can tell if somebody comes with 20 pounds of apples so I'm saying, "What are you going to do with these?" "I'm making sauce," or "I'm making apple sauce," or "I'm making--" I said, "No, no, no."

Interviewer: You don't want those?

Respondent: I send them over to Michael, same with tomatoes, and we do seconds which are a third of the price or half of the price whatever. So we know when people -- we sort of can get a sense when people are doing that stuff. And I show them, "It would have cost you this and now it's only going to cost you this." So we have a whole network of people who buy our seconds because they can or they make sauce, or they-- and some people make jams and jellies and then they bring them to us as gifts. And we talk about people and we tell people, "We have customers that make jams and jellies. And then that's their Christmas gifts to people." I mean, it's brilliant.

Interviewer: Yeah, it is.

Respondent: And then, we do gleaning. So we have several groups that come to Brookland and to Adams Morgan and they also pick up from Chris--

Interviewer: Whatever's left?

Respondent: Yeah, what they can. So things that you can't resell, that won't last.

Interviewer: Yeah. That's been out in the sun all day.

Respondent: Yes. So we have a whole network of places like Christ House and Mary's Center, Martha's Table. There's a woman who does it for all of them and so she collects. She has volunteers that come and collect, and then she distributes them. And then there's a woman from Iona House that comes--

Interviewer: Yeah, for the seniors?

Respondent: Yeah, to Brookland and then they pick up. So, that's why I say-- I mean I hope that most farmers are like this, but I just know us.

Interviewer: Or market managers might-- and that's what I want to hear is like your experience and I think-- and clarify if I'm wrong, this interview has been really interesting because this experience that you had I think is very unique, not only to a small market but to a community-based market, and I don't know that that sentiment of community market is held as widespread across this, what you've called like the mushroom of markets across the city, right?

Respondent: The mushrooming, yes.

Interviewer: Yes.

Respondent: And they're-- I mean, look, I think it's wonderful that people seek out fresher produce.

Interviewer: I agree. Yeah.

Respondent: And as long as it's an honorable market that doesn't get things from California and makes it look like it's a farmer's market. I mean, I support all these markets. This is just ours.

Interviewer: Yes. And what I heard from your experience, is that your relationships with customers, and with the workers, and the fields around both the food and-- really it's the food, right? It's the thing, is that even when prompted about payment or, "Are you paying with cash? Are you paying with WIC? Are you paying with FNMP? Are you paying with Produce Plus?" That that seems to come second to the relationship itself.

Respondent: Well, it doesn't-- I mean, it's not a factor [laughter]. I mean, it's not just an issue.

Interviewer: And that I think is new sentiment for me to be hearing in an interview, and I'm fascinated by that. And so, I want to verify I think that that's what I'm hearing from you.

Respondent: Well, I mean if we didn't have good produce [laughter], we wouldn't have customers.

Interviewer: Is there anything else you want to tell me before we close out?

Respondent: I probably should tell you a little bit more about the Ward 8 project because what is interesting about that is there were attempts at two produce markets, but they all fell by the wayside. And I think one of the reasons-- first of all, I don't know how well-- I mean they're working very hard to advertise it more and I think a lot of people just don't even know about the programs, which is the other unfortunate part. They do give out Produce Plus there and they do take WIC tokens and stuff like that, so that's all good. I might get $7 that comes in from that market. Everything else is from the program. And I think what it says about how important the program is, the different programs, that there are places where people want to eat healthy food, but it's not available to them on two levels. There's not the markets or the stores, and they don't have funds to do it. So, I think that these programs-- I mean I'm terrified what's going to happen to them now, but I think these programs are really important and very essential. We're fine with not getting the cash income. They do do something last year, and they're hoping to do it again this year, because they've got a grant that would ensure the farmer a buyback. So that buyback makes it possible for us to do that. We couldn't survive on the programs, the subsidy programs alone, and clearly there's nobody there who buys independent of the programs, and without that cash back. Because the other thing that happens, as I said, from the beginning that you grow for your markets, and if we have all that perishable stuff left over. So the buyback is a wonderful program because they buy back and they give it out to shelters, and so we're really happy about that. But without those support system, I guess it's the best way to call it, we wouldn't be able to do it in Ward 8. So, we're hoping that-- we're going to have a conversation with them in a couple of them in a couple of weeks. We're hoping that we'll be able to do it with them again.

Interviewer: Yeah. I talked to Nathan, and I talked to John, and they both said wonderful, wonderful things about the community, also in that space, and I guess I'm wondering, from your perspective, the community that you have at your Adams Morgan Market and those relationships that you have at that market with your customers that you've talked about, are you building those same relationships, or similar relationships in Ward 8? Does it look different in any way? Does that market seem-- what does that look like for you?

Respondent: So, because we're also very small staffed, and they rotate-- because a lot of people, they work very hard, they have to come down for Tuesday markets, and then we have Saturday markets, and so they rotate. So it's the same people, but not always in the same week. And--

Interviewer: That are managing the market?

Respondent: Well, no. No, not that. That do our market, yeah. So that's the first thing, but they do get to know them, and the feedback we get from our staff, which I was really worried about because it's kind of out of the way, and it's hard to get to and all, they love the customers. I couldn't believe it. At first I thought, "Oh God, I'm afraid to hear what--" they love the customers there. It's a similar-- and it's slow enough that you can talk about recipes, and talk about food, and that's what they said they do a lot of there. Because we try to anticipate what people are going to buy, so we'll bring some of this, but more of that, whatever. But we try to also introduce new things, so whenever there's something new or something unusual, conversations always spring up and they always talk, and they learn things. They bring things back to us that they've learned. So, it's a very similar kind of thing. I don't know. And I think from what my-- our staff told us is that the same people come back.

Interviewer: Yeah. Wonderful.

Respondent: So in a big market unless it started slow and they built up and a very busy market, we'll have times that our lines are just incredibly long and I don't have as much time, but we do things like we'll give out samples on the lines where people are waiting, or we'll have people talk to each other. We'll figure out something. I don't quite have the luxury, but because it's a stream and it's not always that way, which I understand it isn't in a Dupont circle, you don't have that luxury. I think from what I understand, a lot of the same vendors have been in Takoma Park for a long time, so they do develop a relationship. Like people fit into their schedules, and Sunday at 10:00 we're going to the market, so they develop those relationships. And the times that I've been there, it's lazy enough-- there's still a lot of people but it's lazy enough that you can talk but I don't know the extent of it. I know that it's part of what makes it wonderful to go to a farmer's market. You know, like when I go to even Trader Joe's or-- I don't really have-- some of them aren't the same people, they change a lot also, and every so often you have a little bit of a conversation. But for example, at the co-op, even though they also do have a lot of transition, people coming in and going, there are some people who are there.

Interviewer: That's where I'm going next [laughter].

Respondent: They're wonderful. They really--

Interviewer: I'm very excited.

Respondent: They really do-- I mean, we like seeing each other. I remember you. And I remember this one woman, I told her about what I do with potatoes. I cut them up like French fries, and I put them in a bag or container, and I mix it with olive oil, garlic flakes, onion flakes, and paprika, and then I bake it, and then I freeze them. And she goes, "I have a grandson, and I can't believe it. You're so great. All I do is pull out them out of the freezer now, and I know that they're not made of chemicals. They're healthy," and so on. And so like we have that thing together, and then you just-- when you have those opportunities, it just makes such a difference. I have the same thing with my bank. I don't use machine. I mean, I go to Princess. I love Princess, and Charlotte's back. I'm so happy she's back. Because that's sort of what makes-- you get to know everybody around and it's just very different.

Interviewer: Yeah, it is.

Respondent: So that's what we try to do. And that's-- and we know that we're a dying breed. I have to say that the managed market, big market thing is sort of taking over, but there's some of us all over the country that are holdouts, and I hope that's there's always going to be room for both.

Interviewer: Yeah. And I'm glad that you are. I'm glad that you are.

Respondent: All right. So that's--

Interviewer: Well, thank you much.

Respondent: All right. So, let me.