Clear Creek Food Cooperative

Hello friends,

The lovely rains we’ve gotten lately have brought on quite a boon of local produce.  We received deliveries from three farms yesterday!  The cooler is full of the late Spring wave of our local offerings:  Carrots, broccoli, broccoli raab, joi choy, mizuna greens, garlic scapes, beets, swiss chard, kale,  cabbage, and snap peas.  We even have recipies from Salem Road Farms for those asian greens they brought us.  If we run out before you get here, we will be receiving regular deliveries; and you are welcome to follow us on twitter to receive our tweets when produce arrives.
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I hear we have some rain coming through tomorrow.  It sounds like a perfect day to come in to the Co-op and check out the fresh produce.  We have gorgeous spinach, lettuce, mixed greens and kale.  We even have a few packages of local carrots, radishes, and asparagus! You can practice your Summer routine of heading uptown on Saturday morning for the farmer’s market and local products offered at the Co-op.

We just got a delivery of fresh roasted coffee, and fresh Trader’s Point Creamery products.  The egg and chicken delivery comes in tomorrow, and we have Tofurky roasts for a rainy day gathering.

We have new miso soup,  and new offerings of Jyoti Indian cuisine and curry pastes.  The local, bulk honey is back; and the Food For Life millet bread that many of you have been asking for is in.  Most of our refreshing natural beverages are on sale; and we have those tasty Rice Dream Pies in the freezer.  Come in and see all of the new products and sale items.

See you at the Co-op,
Kiersten Aubre-Howard

Click to see the brochure PDF

After several months of careful deliberation and discussion about our new membership structure, and after great discussions with and feedback from our customers and supporters, we’ve finally decided on one!  (Of course, it’s still something that we will refine and improve over time, but we have to start somewhere.)

You can read all about it online or in our new owner-membership brochure, which includes an application form to become an owner-member.   If you’re interested in supporting this unique, cooperatively owned business model, we’ll look forward to having you join!

(And remember, you are NOT required to become an owner-member to shop at our store downtown! We’re open to the public.)

This past Saturday, nationally recognized author Michael Pollan helped us connect the dots between Nutritionism, Health, and Agricultural Policy in his talk at Earlham College.

If you hunger for more discussion about the issues he raised in his talk and books, the Clear Creek Food Cooperative will be hosting a discussion this Thursday, March 4th at 5:30 PM at our store, 710 East Main Street in Richmond. Come share what you learned, what questions or concerns you’re left with, and your ideas for continuing to connect the dots about food here in Richmond and Wayne County.  (And if you didn’t see Pollan’s talk, you’re still welcome!)

Free and open to the public, light refreshments will be offered.  The Coop grocery will still close at 6, so come early if you want to shop!  Contact us with any questions or to let us know you’ll be coming.

One of the many big conversations we’ve been having on the board about the new Clear Creek Food Cooperative is how our membership options should be structured.  In the past, they’ve admittedly been confusing - members weren’t always clear about their membership status, or what the benefits were.  We’ve worked hard to simplify our membership options to avoid those confusions, and to make sure we follow the successful models employed by many other Coops around the world.

To that end, we’re ready to present in draft form our proposed new membership options for the Coop, and to get your feedback on them.  We’re especially looking for feedback on these points:

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We’re going for it.  There are still plenty of things about the new Coop that need to be planned out and decided, but we hear from our customers and supporters that they’re ready for us to open our doors and invite the community in to our new space.

So, the Clear Creek Food Coop will have our first day of regular hours on Saturday, December 5th, from 10 AM to 6 PM!  We may not have a full inventory yet, but we will be hosting a Holiday Bazaar where you can buy crafts and gift items from local artists, come see the new store, and talk with us about the future of the Coop.  (And we’re conveniently located just a block from Morrisson-Reeves Library, so make sure you stop by the Alternative Gift Fair happening there that same day from 1 PM to 4 PM.)

We’ll see you at the Coop!

Following our board meeting this morning, I’m excited to announce that the Clear Creek Food Cooperative has officially hired Kiersten Aubre-Howard as our new Store Manager.  Some of you know that Kiersten has already been giving her passion and time to the Coop for many years and has coordinated much of our recent transition work, so this is a natural and exciting fit.  We congratulate Kiersten and thank her for her service!

The Co-op is still actively working to open our store at its new location, 710 East Main Street in Richmond.  We’re having a work day this coming Saturday, November 14th at 10 AM (until 1 PM or however long you can stay).  During this time we’ll have volunteer opportunities that include helping to get the store shelving ready, putting together a membership and ownership structure for the new Coop, starting on marketing activities, beginning the cashier hiring process, and much more.  We hope you can join us - just show up, or contact us if you have any questions.

Stay tuned to this website for future updates about the store’s grand opening, membership opportunities, and more.  Thanks!

Chris Hardie
President, Coop Board of Directors

We’re excited to note that we’re reached a major milestone in our work to relocate the Clear Creek Food Cooperative, after many conversations about how we can best live out our organizational mission.  The Coop has secured a new space in downtown Richmond at 710 East Main Street, where we’ll be opening our new store location in the coming months.  Of course, we’re sad to be leaving behind our long-time spot on the campus of Earlham College, but we continue to work with the Earlham community to suggest ways to fill in for the role we played there, and we’re confident that this change will continue to serve Earlham and the wider community well.

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Greetings.  Some of you have asked us for an update on the process of moving the Co-op off campus, and realizing that it’s been more than a month since our last website post, that’s certainly fair!

As Kiersten noted in August, we’ve continued our work on opening the Co-op in a new location in Richmond, with a focus on a strong cooperative model for running a small grocery store with complementary educational/outreach programs.  A few pieces have to come into place before that move can be finalized, and here’s the status of each:

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Co-op Members, volunteers, friends,

Just as many configurations of the Clear Creek Board of Directors have in the past; we the current board, have been wrestling with the notions of relocating.

The student meal plan was an innovative way to keep the co-op solvent over the years.  However, the board has decided to focus on our co-op. The students have been working with the College to revitalize the current space to fit their needs and to provide their own alternative meal plan.

The board’s decision to move the store away from its current location is a move back to the basic co-operative model.  This has not been a simple decision, however If we are a Co-op our guiding principles are clear enough.  A Co-op is voluntarily owned by the people who use it, operated for the benefit of its members, governed democratically, and it adheres to the internationally recognized cooperative principles.

These principles are:

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