Spotlight on a Local: Holly Springs Farmers Market: A Weekly Gathering for Fresh Food and Community

Market brings local vendors with diverse produce and products to town every Saturday, catering to families and community members of every kind.

Holly Springs, NC, Jun. 13, 2025 — Jess Stygles’ job title says it all: Farmers Market Coordinator.

“It’s kind of like running a small business,” Stygles said. “I’m fortunate to have the backup of other town departments and parks and recreation in general, but I have a lot of latitude to make decisions, create programming, and select vendors that I think are going to be the best fit.”

When she joined the department in 2016, she applied to be the assistant to the Chief of Police. The city looked at her resume and degree in communication and offered this role instead.

“My thought process when I started was, ‘I get to do a fun event every week.’ And then that fairly quickly morphed into, ‘Oh my goodness, I’m responsible for these businesses' success,’” she said. “I didn’t anticipate loving it as much as I do.”

In 2016, the market was held monthly from May to October. Stygles has increased the frequency of its market to occur nearly every week of the year. This past May marked her 10th season in the role of coordinator.

Stygles attended almost every market for her first nine seasons, but she now alternates weekends with her co-market manager, Lisa Buch, who also runs the market’s social media presence.

“There’s so many amazing things about Holly Springs,” Stygles said, “I’m just happy to be involved with one reason why it’s so beloved.”

The Job

When asked about her job responsibilities, Stygles cited a National Farmers Market Week theme from a few years back: Farmer’s Markets Don’t Just Happen.

One of her primary responsibilities is selecting vendors present each week. Stygles has to make sure the market offers a variety of products that are in demand while also forming relationships with providers. If vendors sell out too often, she has to consider and negotiate whether they can increase production, or if another vendor needs to come in and fill the gap.

“It's definitely a curated market because we have a unique need for something like pickles, but I have an extensive waitlist for other types of vendors, like bakers.”

She also collects and organizes paperwork related to insurance, kitchen inspection certifications, and ensures that all vendors are up to date on their food safety standards.

“For things that are fermented, making sure that they understand all of the chemistry that goes into it and they have the training for it, that kind of thing,” Stygles said. “A lot of thought goes into making sure that people are not going to get sick.”

Stygles said one of her most significant achievements is setting up the Produce-to-Pantry program. Every week, with money from a Wake County grant, fresh produce is donated to the Holly Springs Food Cupboard.

“At the end of the farmers market, I go around to the farmers and buy their produce, and then the Cupboard comes and picks it up,” Stygles told me. “The food isn’t being wasted, farmers are being paid for what they produce, and it’s going to people who need the help getting produce.”

The Market

Besides a few exceptions, such as coffee beans and maple syrup, everything at the market is grown and made in North Carolina.

“We want them to be making their own stuff. We want it to be their recipe, the sweat of their own brow,” Stygles said.

Farmers can also make trades with out-of-state farmers for seasonal fruits like peaches, as long as it is marked with clear signage.

Offerings include vegetables, fruits, herbs, flowers, eggs, meats, seafood, and artisanal products such as breads and baked goods, sauces, pastas, popcorn, and more.

“I’m all about fresh, local food for everybody,” Stygles said. That’s why she has spent so much effort getting grants and making the event as accessible as possible for those using nutritional assistance programs, such as SNAP.

“What we were finding is that a lot of people think Holly Springs is really affluent and doesn’t need that kind of thing,” she said. “Data from the food cupboard actually goes against that quite a bit.”

Anyone can come to the market with their SNAP benefits card, where they can receive wooden tokens to spend at all eligible vendors like cash. Thanks to a grant, the market can also match up to $20 from these customers for them to spend exclusively on produce.

“We have a couple of vendors that bring in a couple of hundred extra dollars because of SNAP that they might not have seen otherwise,” she said.

Another program, the POP club, invites kids to try new vegetables in exchange for the same wooden tokens to spend on produce. That way, no one feels singled out for using the exclusive currency.

“There shouldn’t be any stigma around it, but we made that extra effort to make sure that people weren’t feeling like there was a spotlight on them for using a [nutritional] service that they are entitled to.”

The POP club was extremely popular last season. Kids would come to the market excited to see what the vegetable of the week was and save up their tokens for things like their very own fruit tree. The program was started with extra grant money that would have been wasted otherwise, but this year's POP club is still searching for a sponsor.

The market caters primarily to families. host a slew of activities every week, including face painters, live mermaids, chalk art, police and fire truck viewings, and baby goats and ostriches. Stygles said she wants everything to benefit the kids' learning, especially in the area of local agriculture.

“I love to instill a sense of curiosity at the market,” Stygles said. “We do a lot of scavenger hunts to educate the kids about where their food comes from, and try to get them to know their farmers a little bit.”

The Community

Stygles has sought to create a welcoming, friendly environment every week.

“I think a lot of people are feeling very isolated these days. There’s a lot of forces that feel like it’s us against them. The farmers market is the opposite of that,” Stygles said.

Those who gather every week are a diverse group. All kinds of families, beliefs, and occupations. The vendors could be North Carolina natives or immigrants—full-time farmers or side-hustlers.

“So many people have told me it’s their happy place,” Stygles said. “You’re working through the week, and then first thing Saturday morning you have fresh fruit and coffee, listen to the musician, bring the kids.”

Stygles also noted that the weekly event contributes to the overall image of Holly Springs. Large companies looking to build new facilities consider where their employees will build their future.

“The small town feel of Holly Springs is something that has been very appealing to many of those companies who come in, and I’ve heard them say that the farmers market has at least contributed to that decision,” she said. “This is a place where they want to put down roots.”

Although she wasn’t scheduled to run the upcoming weekly market, Stygles told me she would be there anyway.

“There are certain dogs that expect me to be there, so I need to be there every morning so I can feed my dogs,” she told me, laughing.

Their next big Farmers Market event, Sprout Fest, will be hosted on August 30th. Dates for annual events, such as Watermelon Day and Pumpkin-Palooza, have yet to be announced. You don’t need to wait for a special day to attend, though.

Every Saturday from 8 am to noon, “we’ve always got something going on,” Stygles said.

You can follow updates on weekly offerings, events, and musicians by visiting the Farmers Market website at www.hollyspringsnc.gov/319/Farmers-Market or following them on Instagram and Facebook.