Easter market brings 30 local vendors to Fort Erie Leisureplex

Heather Rioux had already stitched the tote bags. What she had not done, until recently, was bring any of it in front of strangers.

For home-based sellers in Fort Erie, visibility is what precedes every other problem. Without a storefront, marketing budget or retailer, the distance between making something and selling it is almost entirely social–and entirely dependent on whether the community decides to show up.

About 30 small, local vendors set up tables at the Fort Erie Leisureplex on Saturday for an Easter market that organizers say reflects a growing effort to shift spending away from large online retailers and toward local businesses.

The market is part of a broader shift in consumer behaviour that small business owners across Niagara say they have felt building over the past year, as economic uncertainty and cross-border trade tensions push some shoppers to reconsider where their money goes.

Rioux, owner of Creative Whimsy, based in the Waverly Beach area, makes tote bags and does minor sewing repairs, work she is trying to build into a full-time business. She returned to the Leisureplex market after attending last year, saying the difficulty is not the craft itself; it is being seen.

“It’s challenging to get the word out there. I’m not quite sure how to do it, so I thought coming to a venue like this would help,” said Rioux.

“I was not confident enough to bring my stuff out, but I’m getting over that, becoming more confident,” she said.

Uzo Kanu, the organizer behind Vendors Market Canada, runs markets across Ontario, reaching as far east as Oshawa and north to Aurora, with Fort Erie representing the southern end of their circuit.

The goal, Kanu told Fort Erie Radio, has always been to give micro-businesses and home-based sellers a place to meet buyers without needing the overhead of a storefront. The hardest part, he said, is changing where shoppers go first. Convenience still pulls people toward their phones and toward large retailers that deliver the same day.

“We’re not telling you to stop completely, but give the local businesses an opportunity to earn your business,” said Kanu.

He plans to bring a similar market back to Fort Erie in the fall if scheduling permits.

Sarah Ritenhouse, owner of Muzo Plushies, based in Port Colborne, crochets toys by hand and also sews medical scrubs, a combination that traces back to how the business started. She taught herself to crochet after a nurse friend in England encouraged her.

The scrub-making came first, aimed at hospital workers and personal support workers, but shifted during the pandemic. Children often request custom designs based on popular games and shows, which inspires some of her most popular crochet products.

“The kids love them. They come to me and say, ‘Can you make this?’” said Ritenhouse.

Her grandson asked for a crocheted axolotl–a pink, limb-regenerating salamander native to Mexico and featured prominently in Minecraft. She had never heard the word.

“I went to school, but nobody taught me axolotls,” she said.

They’ve since become one of her best sellers.

Laura Cuthbertson, owner of Laura’s Naturals, left a 25-year career in a greenhouse to run her business full time out of Ridgeway, making skincare products from herbs infused in organic avocado oil and beeswax sourced from a Port Colborne beekeeper.

She takes no online orders and relies entirely on small markets like these to build her customer base.

Courtney Bonito, who operates under the name The Book Lady, wraps thrifted books in paper and pairs them with small items to create what she calls a date-night bundle.

“I thrift as much as I can,” said Bonito. “I just try to repurpose, reduce, reuse.”

She has been doing it for just under a year, working the market circuit while holding a full-time job on the side.

Kanu said the community response at recent markets has grown noticeably over the past 12 months, a trend he connects to economic anxiety and a rising awareness of what local businesses offer.

“It brings the community together,” said Kanu. “Some of these businesses are mom and pop and just starting out, so the fact that the community is coming out to support them, it encourages them, it gives them the confidence that they’re on the right path.”

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