Youths' businesses bloom at farmers market

A light drizzle was starting to fall over Carlisle's Farmers Market on a recent Saturday morning, but the vendors didn't seem to notice. Lauren Tierney was explaining to a customer how spearmint works as a canine mood enhancer.

At the table to her left, Juliet Dalton sliced pears that her business partner, Roxane Sayde, was offering to customers to sample. Farther down the row, Chris and Eric Sellew were instructing an eager chef on the best techniques for roasting their homegrown organic garlic.

But if you watched closely, you would eventually catch the busy sellers peeking at their watches, and for good reason; all of them had other places to be once the market closed at noon. The Sellew brothers had soccer games; Lauren Tierney was off to a Girl Scout event; and Juliet Dalton had hours of homework to do.

The young people are examples of how the market has become an incubator for creative products and marketing ideas hatched by Carlisle youths.

When Gale and Peter Constable founded the market in 2005 with their next-door neighbors, their mission was primarily to provide vegetable growers like themselves a place to sell fresh produce. Looking back, they say that while they hoped that amateur bakers and crafts-people would get involved, they did not imagine that so many local kids would seize the opportunity.

But because farmers markets are less bureaucratic and less strictly regulated than other sales venues, they provide an ideal venue for young people to try out their sales and marketing skills.

``The credo of our Farmers Market is `Mass. made or Mass. grown,' " said Gale Constable. ``I like the way that each of these kids is challenging their own creativity to provide a unique niche for the market." Thirteen-year-old Lauren Tierney's brainchild, homemade dog biscuits, which she sells under the name Lauren's K-9 Krunchies, formed when she and her mother spotted a bone-shaped cookie cutter at a kitchenware store.

``We thought we'd try making some biscuits for my dog, Kelly," Tierney recalls. ``She loved them, and then my mom suggested we try selling them at Farmers Market. I love dogs and I think they deserve treats, so I thought it was a great idea. We make four flavors: spearmint, cheese, carrot, and peanut butter."

Lauren's mother, Linda Myers-Tierney, gives her daughter credit for taking a simple idea and running with it, like any good entrepreneur. ``Lauren researched recipes on the Internet and learned what ingredients were good and bad for dogs. Then we went to Whole Foods for ingredients and got to work," said Myers-Tierney.

A management consultant herself, Myers-Tierney saw this as an opportunity to expose her daughter to the business world.

``I think it's really important for kids, especially girls, to be encouraged to learn all the aspects of math and business," she said. ``When I studied business as an undergrad, I was the only woman in all my classes. I wanted Lauren to have a sense of a whole process, from making something to marketing it and merchandising it. This is an incredible learning experience for her."

Lauren may be learning about price points and supply-and-demand rules, but she is also giving her social skills a workout. ``You meet a lot of people at Farmers Market," she said. ``I always ask people if they have a dog, but sometimes I get jittery if they don't answer right away, because they might have a dog that is sick, or they might have had a dog that died, and you don't want to bring up bad memories."

Lauren found that her Internet research paid off in that she is now able to advise dog owners on the best flavors for their particular pets. ``Spearmint is a natural antidepressant and is also good for older dogs with joint problems."

For Roxane Sayde, participation in Farmers Market has provided exposure to marketing, customer service, packaging, and time management.

Last year, she and a fifth-grade classmate, Amelia Huberman, baked dozens of blueberry muffins every Friday night. Amelia's mother showed the girls how to increase the appeal of their product by using pretty baskets and arranging their table attractively. She also encouraged them to draw in customers by providing free samples of their baked goods.

When Amelia decided she was too busy to participate this year, Roxane had to admit that she didn't have the time for baking anymore, either.

``This year I'm mostly selling free-range eggs," she said on a recent Saturday. ``I'm going to try to bake a cake for next week, though."

Any revenue Roxane earns will help subsidize her trip to the Congressional Youth Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C., next month, an honor for which she was nominated by her teachers.

Roxane often shares a table with her neighbor, Juliet Dalton, who last week had harvested basil and apple-pears from her family's garden.

``I sell whatever we are currently growing, and also iced tea," said Juliet, an eighth-grader. For Juliet, who moved back to town last year after spending much of her childhood in Toronto, the bustling small-town milieu of Farmers Market gives her an opportunity to visit with old friends and make new ones. She has learned about beekeeping from a friend who sometimes sells honey at the market, and she finds plenty of time between customers to chat with her old play-group buddy, Lauren Tierney.

Brothers Chris Sellew, 11, and Eric, 8, come to market nearly every week to sell organic garlic that they grow in their backyard.

``We learned how to grow it from our dad," Chris explained. ``He used to play for a basketball league in Italy, where he discovered a pasta dish that he really liked. He wanted to be able to make it when he got back to the US, so he started to research garlic." Their father, Paul, played professional ball in Italy, and the name of the dish is aglio olio con peperoncini.

The agricultural cycle for garlic begins in the fall, Chris explained. ``We start every year in October, digging little holes that are six inches deep and planting the garlic cloves. Then we just wait and wait until April, when the buds pop up and we have to start weeding and plucking off the scape."

The Carlisle Farmers Market opens in mid-July, just as the Sellews' garlic is ready to harvest. ``We started out with two varieties: Rocambole and Music," Chris said. ``This year, we introduced two new kinds."

The boys found that harvesting garlic was easy compared with becoming salesmen. ``It took us a while to learn to do a pitch and talk people into buying it," Eric said with all the candor of an 8-year-old. ``Now we know how to describe the different kinds of garlic. One is spicier; one is sweeter." Doing the math is a breeze, Eric said, because ``we sell three bulbs for two dollars or one bulb for one dollar. It's easy to make change because there are no cents."

Although the product is inexpensive, a loyal customer base has reaped big rewards for the Sellew brothers, who also sell their goods at the Arlington Farmers Market.

``So far we've made $1,200," Eric reported. The money gets divided among cousins who help out as well as Eric, Chris, and their mother, Bonnie. Eric is saving for a video game; Chris plans to put his take in the bank for college.

Chris Sellew expanded on the theme of salesmanship. ``We learned what to say through experience. We talk about all the good qualities of our organic garlic," he said. ``We learned not to say stuff like that it doesn't have a long shelf life. If someone asks us a question about how to cook it, we just run over and get our mom, because she knows everything."

With this last statement, his brother and business partner shot him a puzzled look, and Chris quickly amended it. ``She knows everything about cooking, I mean," he said.