Year-round community market created in Coeur d’Alene

It all started with hummus. Coeur d’Alene resident Anissa Duwaik’s family recipe for the chickpea dip was such a hit with her husband, she found herself making batches upon batches for him. “I thought, ‘If I was going to make so much of it, I might as well sell it,’” Duwaik says. So last spring, she became a vendor at the Kootenai County and Downtown Farmers Markets, two North Idaho markets she manages. Selling her organic hummus at the outdoor markets, which run from May through October, opened Duwaik’s eyes to what she saw as a void in the community. “I got a good view of the needs of the vendors, the needs of the consumers, and realized we could use a winter market,” she says. So by the end of the outdoor markets’ season, Duwaik had organized an indoor winter market and opened it for business on Nov. 8. The Local Market Cd’A runs on Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. inside the Coeur d’Alene Plaza Shops, a small mall that sits across the street from the Coeur d’Alene Resort. Its vendors sell handmade crafts; locally raised lamb, fish, eggs and beef; organically made tofu, baked goods and—of course—hummus. “My goal is to get people to think of the place as a market, where instead of going to the grocery store to buy meat from who-knows-where that’s injected with hormones, they’re getting meat locally, knowing that the animals were treated well and don’t have antibiotics or hormones,” Duwaik says. Aside from meeting people’s basic needs, her other aim is to help localize the economy. She envisions a day when Coeur d’Alene residents buy the bulk of their goods from producers located in or near the Lake City. “The whole premise behind this is to increase jobs in our area and … keep our money here instead of sending it other places,” Duwaik says. When that comes to fruition, “our (local) economy will be fine regardless of what’s happening on a national level,” she asserts. As word about the market spreads, Duwaik is seeing more customers coming in on Saturdays. “A lot of people are saying, ‘It’s about time,’” she says. The markets are just one green initiative Duwaik is getting behind. She plans to start a campaign this summer to encourage more urban farming and has been talking with farmers about investing in heated greenhouses so “we can get greens all winter long,” she says. Duwaik also is launching a campaign called Project Community Cd’A, which she hopes will help foster a sense of responsibility and belonging in Coeur d’Alene. “Because the economy is changing and our livelihood is changing, we really need to depend on our neighbors and create that sense of belonging,” Duwaik says, adding that many societal problems deal with isolation and can be improved by reaching out to one another. One of the first steps toward achieving this, she says, is by just getting to know your neighbors. “I think we need to simplify,” Duwaik says. “We’ve become so far away from our roots and what matters. We’ve become so busy, and our minds are so occupied … I think people are really looking forward to getting back to the basics.”