AT THE FARMERS MARKETS The Mt. Lebanon Lions Farmers Market returns this month to the parking lot of Mt. Lebanon United Lutheran Church, 975 Washington Road, and will continue Wednesdays from 4 to 7 p.m., until the end of October.

The Uptown Farmers’ Market started on Saturday, May 30, in Clearview Common. It will remain open on Saturdays, from 9 a.m. to noon, with food vendors only for the time being. Each week, the market will feature six vendors. The majority will sell standard items such as fresh produce, meat and bread, and specialty vendors—selling cheese, pickled products, maple syrup and more—will rotate out from
week to week.

The Uptown Market has partnered with Eden’s Market, across the street, to help create a food hub in that area on Saturdays. To enter either location, people must wear a mask, maintain a six-foot distance from others, and they must wait to be admitted so that occupancy will meet social distancing protocols.

More information on the Mt. Lebanon Lions Farmers Market here, and the Uptown Market here.

Updates from Uptown June’s First Friday street festival on Washington Road has been cancelled. At press time, plans were in the works to replace it with a virtual event, but no details were available.

Commercial Districts Manager Eric Milliron advises residents to check the Mt. Lebanon Partnership Facebook page for updates.

STAYING IN BUSINESS 

When Greg Cherico, owner of Anne Gregory Couture, at 733 Washington Road, started receiving panicked calls from brides whose overseas dress shipments were being postponed due to the pandemic, he had an idea: Why not make comparable ones in-house?

“We have a dress-maker here that’s a graduate of FIT [the Fashion Institute of Technology] … so with my design expertise and hers, we’ve come up with our own collection of dresses,” he said in a WPXI-TV interview on April 24. “We won’t have to worry about where they are coming from.”

It’s just one of the ways Mt. Lebanon businesses have adapted to try to push through the economic shutdown, which began in March and has progressed through various stages here in Pennsylvania.

“We’re trying to keep a barometer on how businesses are faring,” says Commercial Districts Manager Eric Milliron, who has already issued a survey to local businesses, and expects he will put out many more before the end of the pandemic. “Please keep buying gift cards and supporting restaurants. They need our help right now.”

At the time this issue was written, many salons were selling products at reduced prices and offering deals for gift cards. UberEats, DoorDash and other food delivery services were also offering discounts to help people support their favorite restaurants. And where retail shops may not have had an online presence before, many set up shop on the internet in record time to help recoup some of the losses of their closed brick-and-mortar locations.

Some Mt. Lebanon-owned businesses—particularly in the fitness industry—have been able to continue offering services online. Moxie Mind & Body in the Lebanon Shops and Sweat PGH at 100 Siena Drive are offering virtual fitness classes. Still Mountain T’ai Chi has also gone online.

If  you have a favorite local business, there are probably ways to continue supporting it during the shutdown. Milliron recommends people check the Mt. Lebanon Partnership website at mtlebopartnership.org, which now features an interactive map that is updated multiple times a week and includes information on local business hours and services.

“If your favorite business is not listed, they can email me at emilliron@mtlebanon.org to get on the list,” says Milliron, who notes that business owners should also check the Partnership website for information on grant programs and other resources. “We don’t know how long we will be social distancing, but we can still support our local businesses in the meantime.”

RELAY FOR LIFE GOES VIRTUAL It’s a very scary time for cancer patients, who need the services of the American Cancer Society more than ever, at a time when it’s impossible for the nonprofit to run normally.

To wit: Relay for Life of Mt. Lebanon, previously scheduled for June 13, is cancelled. It’s just one of 750 such events across the country the organization is suspending to preserve the safety of volunteers, patients, survivors and staff.

But Relay for Life of Mt. Lebanon will soldier on to raise money and to promote its mission and the ACS’s available services, with the slogan “Cancer hasn’t stopped and neither will we.” The organizers are working on a host of virtual and fall fundraisers, with information available as it develops at www.relayforlife.org/pamtlebanon, and on the group’s Facebook page. Its goal is to raise $100,000 this year.

For those who need cancer resources, the ACS National Cancer Information Center is staffed 24/7 so callers can get answers from a live person: 800-227-2345

Other resources are available at www.cancer.org, including the latest guidance from public health experts for cancer patients during the pandemic.