Home Grown
Eli Penberthy ’05 is outspoken in Spokane about the benefits of organic food.

By Hugo Martin '87

Eli Penberthy ’05 didn’t realize how important food was to her until she went away to college. She grew up in a home where her mother, a yoga instructor, prepared meals from scratch and bought fresh produce weekly at the local farmer’s market. Farm-fresh, unpackaged food was a vital part of her life so it was a tough transition when Penberthy arrived at Pomona College and got her first taste of mass-produced food.

 It wasn’t that the food was bad. But the College sits within a few hours drive of some of the richest agricultural land in the nation yet Penberthy was hard-pressed to find a locally-grown tomato at the salad bar. And it was hard for her to ignore the Florida stickers on the oranges.

“Once you get a taste of an apple that has just been picked and you meet the farmer who picked it … you can’t go back,” she says.

Now, Spokane is reaping the benefits of Penberthy’s drive for fresh food.

This young alum is heading a campaign to make the farmer’s market among the best in the state. Her endeavor, she hopes, will not only give her hometown’s residents a taste of top-grade local produce but will promote healthy eating and a prosperous local farming community.

 At the age of 23, Penberthy has created a blueprint to relocate, restructure and revitalize Spokane’s small, waning farmer’s market.

After graduation, Penberthy won a fellowship from the New Priority Foundation, a family-owned foundation in Spokane, to promote sustainable farming in one of several northwest communities. Penberthy launched Friends of the Farmer’s Market, an organization dedicated to promoting Spokane’s farmer’s market. As director of Friends, she organized cooking demonstrations to teach market visitors how to prepare fresh fruits and vegetables and events to show shoppers how to buy local foods.

 Although Washington has a thriving agricultural industry, much of the produce grown in the state is exported— something Penberthy hopes to change.

After researching other farmer’s markets, Penberthy realized that Spokane’s market—with only about 20 stalls tucked away in a secluded church parking lot—needed a new location and restructured leadership. As it was, the farmers controlled the board of directors and had the power to keep out competing farmers.

She has led the charge to create a new, diversified board of directors that includes representatives of local government and nearby business groups with the various constituencies offering different expertise.

 In addition, Penberthy has helped secure a new location in downtown Spokane on a riverfront park where she’s sure a new market can flourish. If her critics at the old farmer’s market decline to participate under the new governing board, she says, Spokane may end up with two farmer’s markets—the old version and her brainchild..