The commute from downtown Durham to the site of Bull City’s newest farmers’ market is about a 10-minute drive. A few minutes after crossing over I-85, you’ll find yourself navigating windy, two-lane roads dotted with the occasional small business or church before turning into Helena Cragg and Sylvia Williams’ property.
“This is Soul Sanctuary,” says Williams. “It’s land that we bought so we could share it with the community. We have this nice event space here and we have this nice land for people to use. What we knew was that there were farmers’ markets around, but there wasn’t really anything in North Durham for people to access.”
The first North Durham Farmer’s Market event was held on April 6. The market operates on the first and third Saturday of every month and will run through November.
Williams explains these details by her makeshift stall, where seedlings are packed in Solo cups and a large bulletin board covers a card table. Music pours from the front porch of Soul Sanctuary’s main attraction, a beautiful two-story farmhouse painted denim blue, as a small crowd moves from vendor to vendor.
Cragg, who is married to Williams and is the North Durham Farmers’ Market manager, is also buzzing about. The bi-monthly event is her creation: after witnessing her wife’s evolution as a community gardener, Cragg felt compelled to create a unique experience in their neck of the woods. This event is more free-flowing than your average farmer’s market, and instead of the usual early-morning hours, takes place in the afternoon.
“One of the things we wanted to do was just be different in a way that felt important to us and our people,” says Cragg. “A lot of people—as much as they want to go to a farmers’ market—are not Saturday morning people. Even just scheduling hours from noon to 4 p.m. is accessible to different people.”
This strategy paid off. Although not quite as crowded as some of Durham’s longstanding outdoor markets, there was a special sense of kinship among the hundred or so people at Soul Sanctuary. Among the roughly 25 vendors, about a third sold typical farmers’ market fare—eggs, vegetables, seedlings—and the rest feature ready-to-eat snacks or wares like goat milk soap, homemade pottery, or books.
Another one of Cragg’s priorities was to center the retailers’ identities: BIPOC vendors, LGBTQ+ vendors, and female-owned businesses made up the bulk of the stalls. Three of the next four events support marginalized communities: May 25 will celebrate AAPI Heritage Month, June 8 will be a pride celebration, and June 22 will highlight Juneteenth.
By focusing on a collectively diverse makeup of a smaller farmers’ market, she hopes that vendors who might previously have faced more obstacles selling their wares will have more room to spread their wings. The North Durham Farmers’ Market also accepts SNAP EBT benefits for eligible products.
“In taking that on, it became fairly clear that it’s hard to break into [places] where you can begin selling your product,” Cragg says. “Rather than being frustrated that it would be hard to break into a market, it made sense for us to open up land that we have. It’s primarily newer, more beginner farmers mixed with different compliments of businesses.”
In a community where a small group of vendors pull together for a Saturday afternoon farmers’ market, the little touches are what matter. Vendors told me the stories behind their homemade products and explained their path to the industry. One even let me hold a baby goat.
“I grew up on a small farm in Virginia—in the country—and my dad used to always have a garden,” Williams says. “I joined the military, traveled and all of that, and then once I settled down in North Carolina, I started gardening as a hobby, growing enough for Helena and myself. And then I was like, ‘This is pretty cool!’”
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Helena Cragg as Helena Bragg.
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