By Richard Sullins | richard@rantnc.com

The Ruby and Ernest McSwain Worthy Lands Trust has made a gift of $1 million toward the final phases of construction of the new Sanford Agricultural Marketplace, to be located at the corner of Charlotte Avenue and First Streets, and open for business by late next year.

The total amount of the gift is the largest private donation to the project. Half of the amount will be awarded to the City of Sanford toward construction of the facility that will be the new home of the Sanford Farmers’ Market. The remaining funds will be reserved for extension education and programming.

Dr. Bill Stone, director for the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service for Lee County, said the McSwain Trust’s gift will allow the Marketplace to live out its full promise, going beyond just a building used by farmers on Saturday mornings.

“In order to do all the education, the marketing, the outreach, the support, we needed some additional funding,” Stone said. “We were dreaming big, and we did not want to have to compromise the vision of what we knew this project could be.”

It was here that the Ruby and Ernest McSwain Worthy Lands Trust stepped in.

Ruby McSwain spent her entire life in Lee County and became a noted philanthropist, particularly to programs at North Carolina State University that held her interest. In 2002, she made a significant contribution to the J.C. Raulston Arboretum that funded the Ruby C. McSwain Education Center building and complex. Among many of the honors conferred upon her by the University, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters in 2005.

Additionally, the trust she established has awarded more than $2 million in Extension and scholarship endowments that are reserved for Lee County students who attend N.C. State. Her name is seen daily by travelers along Tramway Road at the entrance to the Cooperative Extension Service Office, where ground was broken for construction on June 19, 1999 – 25 years ago this past summer.

The McSwain award is intended to be a “last mile” gift, one that will get the project to the finish line and create a one-of-its-kind agricultural marketplace in central North Carolina and the Sandhills region. But Stone says it will be much more than a just place to pick up a few freshly grown veggies for dinner.

“It’s not only going to be a farmers market,” Stone said. “It’s going to allow us to expand what we’re able to offer. We’ll potentially be able to do some weekday markets. We’ll be able to host community health and wellness events. We’ll have a shared-use commercial kitchen. We will have meeting space. There’s a performing arts stage. It is going to be the kickoff of the next portion of the East Sanford downtown redevelopment.”

The city has envisioned that the Marketplace will be one of the anchor points for its proposed “Sanford Central Green” that would create new greenspace to connect the old City Hall building on Charlotte Street with the newer one on East Weatherspoon Street.

One of the Marketplace’s key features is its location in an economically distressed portion of the city where food insecurity is a critical issue for many families. Those who participate in the US Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will have a place to shop for fresh and nutritious food at a place where they can get locally grown items and pay by using their benefits.

The facility will be home to a teaching and demonstration commercial grade kitchen, where cooking programs that are focused on nutrition will be housed. There will be space to help those that are interested in getting into a food-based business, whether full-time or just as a sideline.

Meredith Favre, N.C. State’s Extension local foods agent at the Lee County Center and the farmers market manager, said “there is an opportunity for us to help farmers either expand into value-added products or help food entrepreneurs get started. We can teach about how to make value-added products. We’ll get into labeling and bring in experts to help farmers and food entrepreneurs know what they need to do to meet food safety regulations and how to market their products.”

Other options will allow county extension agents to expand their existing programs for new and existing farmers.

“We have different programs we offer now, like Small Farm Boot Camp and farm school,” Favre said. “We’ll continue those types of programs, in addition to partnering with area community colleges like Central Carolina to offer more opportunities for new and beginning farmers.”

One of those new opportunities will come in setting up a stall in the new farmers’ market area that will offer about 60 percent more space than what is currently available to farmers in the Buggy Factory parking lot that has been used for the past several years. The new Sanford Agricultural Marketplace will be able to accommodate about 40 vendors, up from the 25 that are now able to use the space.

The market portion will be a covered area that will be open air, assisted by fans, with much greater space to hold the crowds that range on any given Saturday from 800 to 2,000 people or more.

Groundbreaking for the project is expected to take place soon and the work is projected to be finalized around the time of the holidays in late fall of 2025. At the groundbreaking ceremony, one of the traditional gold shovels that will be used is one being brought out of retirement from 25 years ago. It’s the same the one Ruby McSwain used in 1999 at another groundbreaking – for the McSwain Center that is now home to the Cooperative Extension Service.

Stone is excited to see this dream finally start to take shape and says that he can hardly wait for it to be completed.

“This is going to be a unique project with the farmers’ market, commercial and demonstration kitchens, as well as meeting and office space,” he said. “It is going to be a community-centric facility located right in the heart of downtown. We anticipate this becoming a regional destination for people to gather to learn about, celebrate and support agriculture, local foods, and the farmers who are producing it.”