Describe your involvement with the coop. I've been on Top Circle working with outreach for three years now. While ownership growth has been fairly slow since the beginning of my first term, we have made some significant progress. I helped translate all of our marketing materials into Spanish with the next step making our new website bilingual as well. I've helped develop new relationships with community organizations and businesses interested in working with the food co-op while sitting as representative on the Grand Rapids Climate Coalition. I've facilitated getting new swag like our co-op t-shirts and getting more volunteers engaging with potential new owners at our info tables. And I also piloted a new type of event that collaborated with Speciation Cellars to create a beer inspired by the Cooperative Movement, which is now inspiring other such events.
Do you have any other relevant experience? I tend to gravitate towards new and developing spheres of community development. The most notable of my past has been to help lay the foundations for a Microcollege (https://thoreaucollege.org/) in rural, southwest Wisconsin.
What should the coop's role be in the broader community? The co-op’s role in the broader community should be to find ways to bring people from different cultures together with the common purpose being conviviality around food. We all need to eat. So part of our purpose should be to help make the healthy food that we all want to eat, more accessible. That's why, with the new relationships we're forming with nascent farmers, I hope to strengthen these relationships by giving them a reliable client and bringing affordable fresh food to the 49507 area that lacks adequate access.
Are there other statements relevant to your candidacy that member owners should know? If you've seen the movie, Field of Dreams, then I ask that you replay it in your head backwards: "If you come, then we can build it," together.
Do you have any other relevant experience? I tend to gravitate towards new and developing spheres of community development. The most notable of my past has been to help lay the foundations for a Microcollege (https://thoreaucollege.org/) in rural, southwest Wisconsin.
What should the coop's role be in the broader community? The co-op’s role in the broader community should be to find ways to bring people from different cultures together with the common purpose being conviviality around food. We all need to eat. So part of our purpose should be to help make the healthy food that we all want to eat, more accessible. That's why, with the new relationships we're forming with nascent farmers, I hope to strengthen these relationships by giving them a reliable client and bringing affordable fresh food to the 49507 area that lacks adequate access.
Are there other statements relevant to your candidacy that member owners should know? If you've seen the movie, Field of Dreams, then I ask that you replay it in your head backwards: "If you come, then we can build it," together.