History of CoFED

CoFED History

• Early January 2010: Alex Stone, Christina Oatfield and Yoni Landau go on a road-trip to the Northwest to visit 3 existing models and organize a one-day retreat for student teams in the region.

• End of February 2010: Alex begins working for CoFED as the Program Director.

• May 2010: Alex and Yoni go on a road-trip to 8 campuses in California and begin securing commitments from teams to join a pilot training over the summer.

• June 12th, 2010: Yoni speaks at Slow Money’s national gathering from Vermont, beginning CoFED’s national donor network and buzz.

• June – August 2010: CoFED’s pilot week-long retreat and two day-long follow-ups reach over 30 students at six campuses.

• September 2010: Alex leaves CoFED and becomes the Operations Manager for the Berkeley Student Food Collective. Sara Eddison and Cory Bensen join the team.

• October-December 2010: CoFED creates a launch committee and raised $30,000 to support national programming efforts.

• January 2011: CoFED trains five Regional Organizers in five regions and contracts with them to replicate the previous year’s outreach and training programs. Organizers are receiving compensation through revenue-sharing agreements.

• March 2011: CoFED secures 115 monthly donors and approximately $18,000 annually through a monthly donor campaign.

• May 2011: Two CoFED teams receive funding from campus green fee funds – UW receives $57,000 and UC Santa Barbara receives $30,000.

• June 2011: Five regional organizers trained in January run a West coast retreat with roughly 30 students and an East coast retreat with 20. In total representing nearly 15 campuses launching food cooperatives.

• September 2011: Three West coast and one East coast beginning of semester retreats support over 70 attendees learning to create food cooperatives. CoFED is changed to CoFED and CoFED’s new board of directors is elected, representing student members, staff and advisers.