Farmers market creates community in growing Robins

ROBINS, Iowa (KCRG) - Sunday morning, Allison Sorensen sold flowers and chatted with customers, in part because she and her friend Rachel Faust wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.

“Last year, we started at the Hiawatha market,” said Faust. “We applied this year, and we both ended up getting denied.”

So Sorensen and Faust helped create the Robins Farmers Market instead, which has now been running for about two months.

“We put it together within, what, four weeks?” said Sorensen.

The two women said they saw a need for more opportunities for vendors, as well as a need in Robins for more community events.

“Being smaller, you know, there’s not a—quite a bit to do. So having something like this, you know, and there’s kid things for kids to do, and we do yoga, and it’s just—having something to go to is amazing,” said Sorensen.

Robins is small, but also growing. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of Robins went from 2,906 in 2010 to 3,353 in 2020, about a 15 percent increase.

“We’re continuing to grow. We have a number of housing projects that are on the books, and we’ll be bringing more people to town,” said Mayor Chuck Hinz.

Faust and Sorensen hope that events like the farmers market can help ensure that as Robins grows, the people who live there grow closer.

“The community that we’ve built with vendors, like, we’re becoming friends, we socialize, we talk to each other,” said Faust.

“It’s not just a market,” she added. “It’s a community event.”

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