It’s a spring Saturday morning and people have shed their winter coats amid the hum of the warehouse. Greeted by volunteers at the entrance, shoppers come and go. Neighbors catch up, fruits and vegetables line the tables along with honey, pastries and more.
People from all walks of life intersect here where food is made available to all. Everywhere faces smile, this is the place to be.
The 61st Street Farmers Market makes fresh food more accessible to the surrounding Woodlawn and Hyde Park communities while also serving as a bridge between the two and as a third space built on forging connections.
Running indoors from November through April and outdoors from May though October, they are set to open outdoors May 16 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
“The tagline for the market has always been, ‘connect with your food,’” said Connie Spreen, the market’s co-founder and executive director.
This tagline represents the goal for people to connect with their farmers and sources of food, but also to connect with other people.
Fitting into her goal of connection, Ms. Spreen said she very intentionally placed the market on 61st Street to join the Woodlawn and Hyde Park communities and foster a welcoming environment for everybody.
From the beginning Ms. Spreen made it so that Link payment, a card used to access Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, would be accepted at the market. Inspired by a chef on the East Coast, she then went on to create Link Match, which made it so that with every $1 spent with SNAP at a participating location, a customer would receive a $1 Link Match voucher to be spent only on fresh fruits and vegetables.
“Instantly, people loved it,” Ms. Spreen said about the Link Match.
Link Match gained popularity and news coverage, and now it is available at 153 locations around Illinois consisting mainly of farmers markets as well as a few grocery stores and co-ops.
Ms. Spreen said she then started to ask, “‘How do you do it on a broader scale?’”
As she was still connected with the city, she was able to expand Link Match to be a statewide currency that works at most participating locations.
From serving over 2,500 customers a week, providing fresh food to over 600 SNAP households and educating over 300 local children and adults on growing healthy foods in 2025, Ms. Spreen believes the efforts made by the market have paid off, as amid prices rising, they have not lost community support.
“Part of it is that people have come here for a really long time and this is, they talk about it very often, such a staple in their lives,” Ms. Spreen said.
By creating a farmers market in the first place, accepting Link then creating Link Match, and also hosting classes and workshops, Ms. Spreen has created access to healthy food by checking all three boxes of accessible, affordable and desirable. Even with all her contributions, she continues to show up at almost every market.
“Very rarely do I miss a market,” Ms. Spreen said. “Part of it is because I’m the director and the founder, but a lot of it is just because that’s where I see my community and I think other people feel the same way.”
