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195th DTES Street Market at Pigeon Park in Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES) on Sun Mar 2, 2014
195th DTES Street Market and 9th Street Market of 2014
Roland Clarke, Coordinator of the DTES Street Market says:
This was the 195th market at Pigeon Park on Sunday, and it was a snowy and rainy one.
The morning was cold with snow flurries until the late morning. Around noon, the temperature warmed into the typical rainy Vancouver winter day.
We had over 20 tents to put up – thanks to our funder the Central City Foundation – and saved what would have normally been a disastrous day.
Lots of information was given out at the main tent. We had three new potential DNC board members sign the nomination forms.
We also had a guest group – ALIVE – Aboriginal Life in Vancouver Enhancement – giving our information and signing up new members. Our hope is that ALIVE will set up its own tent in the spring and maintain a permanent presence at the market.
There were just a few minor incidents of note.
In the morning, the VPD came and confiscated a huge bottle of vodka from the drinkers. This put a damper on their party and made them much easier to manage throughout the day.
A sign of more good things to come?
194th DTES Street Market at Pigeon Park in Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES) on Sun Feb 23, 2014
194th DTES Street Market and 8th Street Market of 2014
Roland Clarke, Coordinator of the DTES Street Market says:
193rd DTES Street Market at Pigeon Park in Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES) on Sun Feb 16, 2014
193rd DTES Street Market and 7th Street Market of 2014
Roland Clarke, Coordinator of the DTES Street Market says:
Rain, Wind, and Power
This was the 193nd market at Pigeon Park on Sunday. The weather started off great. A little cold, but no rain, and the rain began slowly around noon. Later in the day, the rain started to really come down and chased away most of the vendors and shoppers.
We had a great gift this weekend with the addition of power.
Thank you again, City of Vancouver!
Our revenue was not stellar for the day, only $215, which represents only 65% of our best single day total. Adjusting, however, for the fact that we had torrential rain in the later half of the day shows how well we can survive inclement whether now that we have many 10×10 canopy tents for our vendors.
Sandi Swanigan from the City of Vancouver Events department came down and opened up the power box for us. There was much rejoicing. Even though we did not advertise it at all, we had many vendors ask to test their chargers, laptops, and monitors throughout the day.
We had a few encounters with the VPD today. A vendor was taken away in the morning, but no one recognized him, so there was little interest on the part of the volunteers. Also, in the afternoon, a vendor – Ali – had some items confiscated. There is some debate about whether he lives in the DTES, and we probably need to research this.
A good story for the day involve a new RPIC – Chris H – and a female vendor that was shivering in the rain. Chris noticed that she was standing in the rain and walked over to another vendor who had a number of coats for sale. Horatio immediately offered her one of his coats for free. This is the kind of thing that we can all do for each other in the DTES.
192nd DTES Street Market at Pigeon Park in Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES) on Sun Feb 9, 2014
192nd DTES Street Market and 6th Street Market of 2014
Roland Clarke, Coordinator of the DTES Street Market says:
This was the 192nd market at Pigeon Park on Sunday. We are always proud of this number because it represents the DTES Street Market as one of the longest running events in DTES history.
We had two porta potties this weekend!
Thank you, City of Vancouver!
By the end of the day, the first one was completely full and clogged like normal, but the second one was still usable. Progress!
It was again great weather for Vancouver in the winter. Cloudy, cold, but no rain.
We had no major incidents throughout the day, and most of the volunteers showed up as they promised.
The police interaction during the day was very positive. We had a visit from Mark Bradshaw, who was friendly and cracked some jokes as usual.
Later in the day, we asked two officers to help with the erratic couple that we frequently have problems with. The woman that likes smoking meth openly in the market fired one up in front of everyone. The volunteers tried to get her to be respectful of the families and children that may be walking by, but she just denied it and argued with the volunteers. The police were flagged down and helped us move them out of the market. The police were helpful and just stood around while the couple packed up, and therefore assisted the volunteers immensely. The couple were told that they could come back to the market next week, but had to leave today. They left peacefully. Hopefully this is a new era of cooperation between the VPD and the DTES Street Market!
We also had a celebrity visit from MaryClare Zak from the City of Vancouver. She wandered around the market and spoke to a few of our volunteers. She had nice things to say, and I hope that it showed how proud the volunteers were of their work.
DJ did outreach for the DNC at the market, and polled a number of vendors on their opinions of the DTES LAP process. She will present these findings at our next board meeting.
We had good sales again. Sold out of Coffee and Hot Chocolate at about 1:30pm.
Green Party of Vancouver 2014 Annual General Meeting
We are coming up on a very exciting year for the Green Party of Vancouver – a municipal election year! We are looking forward to campaigning to re-elect Adriane and elect more Green City Councillors and Park and School Board representatives!
Adriane Carr with Roland Clarke
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