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ORAL HISTORY
Sissie Lang and Carl Pelizza
East Point Farmers Market
Sissie Lang is a native of East Point, Georgia. Carl Pelizza grew up in Orange, Connecticut and relocated to the Atlanta metro area. Lang has long worked with the City of East Point, and they approached her about opening a farmer’s market for the town in 2011. Carl became involved in the market in 2012. Gradually, he and his daughter became more and more involved as volunteers.
In March 2020, Lang began to think deeply about how to reopen the market to be safe in the middle of the Pandemic. They held socially distanced, outdoor market events with personal protective equipment and santizing stations. In the interview, Lang and Pelizza discuss the ways in which city-wide shutdowns, work from home orders, and furloughs impacted traffic in the market. Less MARTA passengers meant less customers. Though increased SNAP benefits through a Wholesome Wave Georgia program doubled the amount of produce food insecure people could buy, Lang and Pelizza related that not all vendors were able to survive during the pandemic.
