Our Daily Show Interview! Wood River Main Street: Farmer's Market, Social and More!
Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
WOOD RIVER - Wood River’s annual summer farmer's market opens this week.
From 4–7 p.m. on Thursdays starting June 11, 2026, through Sept. 24, 2026, Wood River Main Street will host their farmer's market in the downtown lots at Madison Avenue and First Street. Community members and guests are invited to come by and shop local farmers, makers and bakers while enjoying live music.
“We have a food truck coming every week. We have a band coming every week. A lot of bakers and makers. The produce will come in a little bit later. But we’ve got meat. We’ve got eggs. We’ve got all kinds of things,” said Charlotte, who is organizing the market this year. “I’m really excited about it, and I’m hoping people will come down and do some shopping with our brick-and-mortars and do shopping with our vendors and eat dinner and then bring their lawn chairs and listen to the band.”
Charlotte explained that she loved going to the farmer's market over the past few years, but she was “really disappointed” by last year’s market because there were only a few vendors. She spoke to Wood River Main Street’s director, Kristen Burns, about letting her take over the market as her own project.
“Last year was really rough,” Burns shared. “It was rough for me because I had about nine million things going on all at the same time. It’s really hard for me to just give all of my effort into something. And with it being every Thursday, it was just a lot. So I was really appreciative when Charlotte said, ‘Let me do this.’ Delegation is very difficult for me, but I felt that she was able to take control.”
Over the past few months, Charlotte has traveled to vendor fairs and reached out to several artisans and farmers. She has about 50 vendors currently signed up to vend at the market on June 11, and she is ecstatic.
Every week will feature a new band and food truck in addition to the vendors. On June 11, Charlotte and the Wood River Main Street team are excited to welcome The Pugan Experience as their band and Gumbo 2 Geaux as their food truck.
They are still open to vendors, especially farmers who are willing to share their produce. Burns added that the market aims to support vendors and provide them with an opportunity to sell their products. She hopes the market can be a launching point for some businesses that want to eventually expand to a brick-and-mortar location.
“The cool thing with farmer's markets is you get to see some of the at-home vendors and the at-home small businesses that maybe aren’t ready for a brick-and-mortar, but maybe it’s in their mind. That’s what we use the farmer's market for, as kind of recruitment,” she explained. “We’re working on a small business incubator, and maybe they might be ready to jump into a small business incubator. So this is kind of getting the ball rolling for some of these smaller businesses maybe wanting to move to something bigger.”
Charlotte noted that she has put a lot of work into recruiting vendors and organizing the market, and she hopes to welcome big crowds every Thursday starting on June 11. She looks forward to sharing her work with the community and bringing people together at the market once a week.
“I’ve done a lot of work. I hope now the community will support the work that I did,” she said. “We just want everybody to come and support it.”
For more information about the Wood River farmer's market, including updates about each week’s food truck and entertainment, visit the official Wood River Illinois Farmer’s Market Facebook page.
More like this:
