IN 2017, Cherry Creek resident Traci Pellar started two organizations, the Mendocino Producers Guild and the Mendocino Wildlife Association. In Pellar’s mind, the two were inextricably connected, as guild members committed to protecting wildlife.
“I wanted to promote food and cannabis producers doing best management practices to live sustainably with wildlife,” Pellar said. “Our producers practice nonlethal means of livestock and crop protection and also conserve water and habitat for wildlife.”
Now the guild, which used to concentrate on food crops and cannabis, has reinvented itself to take on a new challenge: how to help a Laytonville area community decimated by the vast decline in cannabis income.
Part of that reinvention is taking on a physical presence in Laytonville by putting on an event meant to kick off a thriving economy for area creatives, cooks, and farmers. On May 31, the nonprofit guild inaugurates a new home, the M.P.G. Hall, that Pellar envisions will serve as a storefront and hub for the guild’s artists, farmers, chefs, and crafters. Over forty guild members will show their wares from 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. at the barn-like building on U.S. Highway 101 in Laytonville.
“We just got a brick and mortar on 101,” Pellar said. “It’s on the southeast side of town. It used to be a farm stand deli back in the ‘80s and has been vacant for a while.”
Pellar explained that the owners, Bob Bonnet and Kathy Hallinan, are community-minded people who are renting the building to the guild for just $500 a month: “If it weren’t for them being so generous, this wouldn’t be able to happen.”
The plans beyond the May 31 event are ambitious—and needed. Pellar remembers back in the day, when she would host a bake sale for the wildlife association or local kids’ events and bring in as much as $2,000, primarily from hobby cannabis growers eager to contribute to the welfare of the community. Many of these people were older couples living in the hills who would grow 10 to 20 plants for extra income. After the bottom fell out of the cannabis market, those people are struggling, Pellar said.
“We were a legacy town,” Pellar said, referring to the Laytonvillle area. “Cannabis was our main income. Cannabis is dead. So we’re going from a resource-based economic base to trying to be an economy based on tourists.”
She pointed out that thousands of people drive up and down 101 daily. “It’s hard for people up in the hills to make an income. A lot of them don’t even have wi-fi. They can come on down from the hills and sell what they’ve got and hopefully make some money. There’s a lot of talent in these hills.”
Beyond the event, which will feature food, crafts, art of all types, herbal remedies, plant starts, leather goods, and much more, Pellar envisions workshops, a pub night, and producers being able to use the building to grow and make things. For example, an elderberry hedgerow is planned for the front of the building, with the berries used to make tinctures and medicines. Pellar said that all the producers at the event are from Mendocino County, mostly from Laytonville and its surrounding hills, Branscomb, and Redwood Valley.
“What I’m finding is a real community resilience coming out of this,” Pellar said, speaking of the cannabis crash. “Some of those little moms and pops now don’t have money to buy a tire. They can’t afford to fix their cars. These are hard roads and hard times. It shows what people are made out of.”
Pellar hopes that eventually the guild can create not just a tourist attraction for the arts and crafts of an involved and creative community, but an online marketplace as well.
“Right now, they don’t have an avenue to a broader market,” she said. “So that’s our mission statement.”
The Mendocino Producers Guild artisan, craft, and food market is May 31, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 43401 Highway 101 in Laytonville.
This story originally appeared in The Mendocino Voice.