The Lake Elmo Farmer’s Market raised $6,340 for the Washington County Sheriff’s K-9 unit during the 12-week season this year.
A check was presented to the Washington County Sheriff on Wednesday. The funds will be used to purchase vests for the K-9s.
Jill Lundgren, the manager for the Lake Elmo Farmers Market, started the market seven years ago and got the idea for the fundraiser as a way to give back to the community.
“For the past two years, we have asked the Washington County Sheriff to come out and do K-9 demonstrations,” Lundgren said Friday. “And last year we were kind of just talking to them and we knew that they were going to retire two of their police dogs. I was talking to them about the vests for police dogs and the price of the vest is somewhere around $3,000. I presented it to our board and said ‘you know what? Let’s do a fundraiser.’”
The market was able to match up to $1,000 of donations. With the help of the donation match and donors, the market was able to raise over $6,000.
Next year the market board plans on adding a youth vendor space for youth farmers and entrepreneurs to be able to sell their products.
