February 2021 Newsletter
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February 2021
Wild Onion Market Food Co-op is committed to
Selling affordable and accessible healthy food to our diverse communities.
Getting our products via local farmers, producers, suppliers, and small businesses.
Keeping money in our community, and employing locally. This is our market. We own it.
Like & Follow Wild Onion Market on Facebook, Instagram
Wild Onion Market Updates
- Owner Number Update: We are nearing 670 Owners! We signed 39 new Owners in the last 30 days! Be the next one! Join by purchasing a one-time only Owner share ($250 per household/business. We offer installment payments starting at $10 per month, and financial assistance to help with the purchase of your Owner share here.
- Site Update: Our Site Selection Committee continues work with our commercial realtor, and building on partnerships with local government officials, businesses, and community organizations. We are looking for rectangular space of about 6,000 – 10,000 sq ft. accessible from public transportation, with parking availability, and with space for farmers and other vendors to unload their wares. If you know of a site that fits these criteria in the northside/south Evanston community – let us know! Contact Kristin@
wildonionmarket.com. - Capital Fundraising Campaign! Stay tuned to learn about ways YOU can invest and make donations toward opening the doors of our store.
Wild Onion Market Calendar Events
- Monthly Information Session: F
ebruary 25 at 7 pm. Please join us to meet others, learn more, and ask questions! For zoom info: Michelle@ wildonionmarket.com - Owners are welcome to attend our monthly Board meetings the first Thursday every month, 7 – 9 pm. For Zoom information: Ricky@
wildonionmarket.com - March Madness, Co-op Style! How about a car magnet to show pride? We would be happy to coordinate getting it to you! Contact Kristin@
wildonionmarket.com. Stay tuned and get ready to order t-shirts and hats to show off your cooperator vibe! - Wild Onion Market Food Co-op Annual Owner Meeting: March 27. Save the date; zoom information coming.
Call to Action
- We want YOU! Background and interest in marketing? Data analysis processes? Fund-raising? Graphics and design? We would welcome your help, as would our whole community. Lend your talents to particular standing committees related to Communications (Lisa@wildonionmarket.com) and
to Capital Campaign fundraising (Mary@wildonionmarket.com). Write us, and we can chat!
February Spotlights
- Social Media Campaign Focus is Local Busine
sses: On our Facebook and Instagram, each day we highlight a local business. Our co-op supports local businesses because they also support our communities! Share the posts, too, in your social circles. - Wild Onion Partners: Creating and nurturing partnerships will help us to open our store doors! Over the next few months, help us build on partnerships with farmers, women and minority-owned businesses crafting materials related to food and sustainability, and related community organizations.
- How can we all help? Do you own a business? Know of others who do? Are you participating in community work? Know about other community initiatives? Let us know! Get involved, and share ideas, too! Write us at Board@wildonionmarket.org.
- Co-ops and the Black American Experience: The histo
ry of Black American experiences with food cooperatives is rich and enduring. Lisa Barclay, an Owner and Board member in in Port Townsend, WA food co-op recently reviewed the book, Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice by Jessica Gordon Nemhard. Read Barclay’s review here. Watch Jessica Gordon Nembard discuss her book here. The depth and breadth of mutual support and cooperative action has rung strongly for Black farmers starting centuries ago, in part to combat White racist structures and actions. Black farmers contributed pivotal farming knowledge about innovative tec hniques like crop rotation and cooperative busin ess practices. - Those values continue to guide farmers in Chicago through
places like Urban Growers Collective, a Black- and women-led non-profit farm in Chicago with the mission “to build a just and equitable local food system”. Read here about eight Black-owned urban farms to support located around Chicago. Lyabo Farms in Pembroke IL is an organic farm, family-owned for over 25 years, and specializing in vegetables and raising chickens. It is these farms and producers from which our Wild Onion Market will source healthy food and gather local products to fill our shelves – all part of being in our community. Just like for US Black farmers, mut ual support and cooperation will ring loudly in communities in part through the Wild Onion Market food co-op.
Wild Onion Market Community Organization
Partners Connections for the Homeless serves over 1500 people from 49 Chicagoland northside communities by advocating for
and supporting good housing. Learn about ways you can be involved here.
We are on the move gaining Owners, finding our store site, and fundraising!
Join the excitement! Learn how here.
Questions about the Wild Onion Market? Write to Board@wildonionmarket.com
Follow Wild Onion Market on Facebook, Instagram
Writer and Editor: Michelle Parker-Katz Michelle@
wildonionmarket.com Social Media: Ricky Burton Romero Ricky@wildonionmarket.
com Board President: Jillian Jason Jillian@wildonionmarket.
com
http://join.wildonionmarket.
Wild Onion Market · 6431 N Newgard St, Unit 3S, Chicago, IL 60626, United States
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