Each month I send a special note to all Co-op Owners, keeping us all in touch about the latest news and developments in building our community owned grocery store. Sometimes I’m able to report our progress in our grassroots efforts growing our community, raising funds to build our store, or even the behind-the-scenes negotiations on some sites of interest.
This, however, is a special letter, to all of you who are Owners and to those who haven’t joined yet, too. I want to announce that we have collectively reached a huge milestone – At the end of November we welcomed our 1,000th Owner!
Reaching this goal is a clear sign and directive from our Northside community – We are ready for our own independent cooperative grocer! We’re taking control of our local food supply chain and positively contributing to our economy to keep dollars local. We’re part of an international movement toward cooperation and the solidarity economy. We’re all in this together.
Today we are over 1,015 Owners and counting and we need full community support to open our store. If you’e still waiting for a sign to join, or need a reason to participate in our first round of fundraising, consider this:
As of 2020, over 100 community co-ops just like ours are organizing across the US. In addition, food co-ops are open in 38 US states. In 2020, those co-ops donated over 1M pounds of food and $7.3M to organizations in their communities. They each worked with an average of 185 local farmers and producers and dedicated 22% of their shelf space solely to local food. Across the country, almost 5,000 new jobs were created at food co-ops.
Imagine what a food cooperative will do for our community.
It has been my great honor to lead our organization in 2021 and I know 2022 will bring us even closer together and closer to our goals.
In Cooperation and Onward,
Jillian Jason, Board President