How does it feel to spend the last ten years portraying a giant blueberry?
“Super fun,” is how Ima Blueberry describes it.

“It is challenging to fit through doors, but it is great fun and thankfully most of the events are outside,” Ima said.

Ima participated in 45 farmers markets and festivals this past spring and summer. Her double, Ima Blueberry Too, did an additional 18 or so events.

Ima Blueberry Too, who has two summers under her belt as a “giant blueberry,” said she also loves the work.

“People are happy when they see you,” Ima Too said. “If you are just handing out brochures, people say thanks and walk by. But when you are this character, it makes people happy and they love to visit.”

Early photo of IMA in original costume.

With a decade under her belt, Ima said she’s even watched some kids grow up from behind her blueberry suit. Asked how she recognizes kids that she sees only once or twice a year, she said, “I have a really good memory which I attribute to blueberries.”

Ima estimates she has distributed thousands of items promoting blueberries over the past decade, including bookmarks, stickers, literature and pencils. This past year the two Imas gave out recipes which included information on the health properties of blueberries and stickers that read: “Blueberries make me happy.”

“Oddly, people love to collect the stickers,” Ima said. “They show me stickers from the early days.”

The costumes donned by Ima and Ima Too include foam about an inch thick that is molded into a circle with blue cloth on the outside and flaps on top that look like the crown of a blueberry.

The two then accessorize their costumes with what Ima Too calls “blue bling.” The bling can include hats, glasses and other items.

Ima said she once met Broccoli Man, a fact that made her realize that at five-foot-two-and-a-half inches tall, she’s too short to portray broccoli.

Broccoli Man, it turns out, “has flown all over and posed with presidents,” Ima said.

Despite this brush with fame, Ima wasn’t overly impressed.

Ima said she once was pictured along with Shee’sa Strawberry in an article in Sky Delta airline magazine that rated the Portland Farmers’ Market as the number one farmers’ market in the world. (For comparison, the market in Paris, France was rated number ten.) On the cover of the magazine was Tyra Banks, a fact that prompted Ima to say that she never thought she would be in a magazine with Tyra Banks on the cover.

“Broccoli Man may have posed with presidents,” she said, “but these mild-mannered Oregon berries were pictured in a magazine that literally traveled the world.

“If you’re going to be a super food,” Ima said, “I recommend being a blueberry.”