Farmers Market

Bringing farm-fresh food to Valley Stream

By Peter Belfiore

After a delay from uncertainty over the coronavirus pandemic, the Valley Stream farmer’s market returned this summer to the Hendrickson Park pool parking lot, and will continue every Thursday from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. until Novemeber.

The market’s sponsor, Long Island Growers Market LLC, announced the news on social media, and said many of the vendors from the previous year’s market had returned, including Fred Terry and Son Farms, Conklin’s Farms, Sal and Jerry’s stuffed breads and many more.

Growers Market was founded more than 30 years ago by Ethel Terry, the owner of the Orient Point-based Fred Terry and Son Farms. At the time, she said, the farm was struggling to survive, and to save it she knew she would have to sell her produce first-hand. In 1989, her first farmer’s market opened in Islip.

Valley Stream’s was the newest of Terry’s markets, first opening last June. She had been invited after village Assistant Recreation Superintendent Mike Pellegrino discovered the organization upon inquiring with Rockville Centre village officials, whose own Growers Market had proved popular. The Rockville Centre market opened this year on June 7.

All of products sold at the markets must be made, caught or grown by the vendor, according to Terry’s policy. She also verifies that the vendors are licensed, and makes each show her their invoices to prove that they make their own products. “She has pretty strict standards,” Pellegrino said.

The market also accepts Women, Infants and Children Program and Nutrition Program for Seniors coupons for those on food assistance.

The village asks that shoppers wear facemasks.

Photos by Christina Daly/Herald Top photo: Kathy Scalzo of the Glen Head-based Backyard Bees sold her natural, eco-friendly and waste-free products at the Valley Stream farmer’s market earlier this month. Bottom photo: Sandra Williams, of Rosedale, browsed the honey-based products of Miss Molly’s Honey Drippers, which has a stand at the Valley Stream farmers market, which is open each Thursday morning at the Hendrickson Park pool parking lot until November.