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The Second Kitchen Project

July 23rd, 2011
Cooperative Stories #1:
The Second Kitchen Food Co-op
By Jake McCollum

It was a clear and beautiful Santa Barbara Sunday when I was first contacted by three girls in Colorado who wanted to start a food co-op. I’m always excited to meet people with a passion for food and cooperatives. I had no idea what these girls would accomplish in a few short months.

I should provide some context: In addition to being a prolific blogger, I am also the Southern California Regional Director for an organization called the Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive (or CoFed), a small 501(c)3 dedicated to restructuring the food system by providing students with the tools, resources and training necessary for starting food co-operatives on their campuses.

Every time I get a new email, or met anther person interested in co-ops or food justice, it reinvigorates that feeling of shared purpose and hope. So I was excited to get word from Boulder, Colorado. Boulder is a town centered around food. It should come as no surprise then that it is ground zero for some of the most interesting and important food work happening in the United States.

As a Regional Director I check-in regularly with students from across the United States and help connect them to people and resources who can help them. These calls are always exciting and inspiring. But getting to know Sara, Beth and Sabina and their project has been both a thrill and a privilege. A thrill and a privilege that I’d like to share with you:

Ever since I was a little girl growing up in the least populated county east of the Mississippi River, I was aware of the divine right and importance of food. The closest grocery store was two hours east, where we would have to pass over seven mountains of the Appalachian Mountain range to buy food. I was taught that becoming self sufficient was the necessary option. Buying in bulk was crucial for my family in order for us to save trips to faraway lands. That is where my inspiration to ‘feed the people’ was sparked. Everyone, no matter where they live or what their income may be, should always have access to healthy, local, and organic food. Fortunately for me, my food seed was planted early on in my life. So what leads me to be asked to blog for this awesome organization? I can say that I, along with my core group of foodie cohorts (Beth and Sabina), has successfully founded and are currently operating a small food cooperative in three short months. The idea to start this project in Boulder was initially planted at a Real Food Challenge Convergence in 2010 held in Missoula, Montana. As a member and leader of the University of Colorado at Boulder’s student group CU Going Local, I journeyed 15 hours north to attend the convergence to be exposed to other student groups that shared similar interests and passion that surrounds all aspects and issues regarding what feeds us. A few of us attended a workshop on Co-ops. After the workshop, I never had felt such a surge of importance for people to have universal access to affordable and healthy food!

We left the convergence with many ideas and aspirations on starting a Food Co-op for CU students. Alas, time marched forward, and we were thrown once again in the bustle of college life and commitments. We put the idea of a food coop on the back burner…for over a year.

On one snowy day in April 2011, CU Going Local hosted our monthly potluck when one of the discussions that bubbled to the surface was the need for a food coop in Boulder. At the potluck we discussed how expensive local food is in the town, and how easy it is for college students to go the cheap route rather than the healthier one. How to merge the two routes was the ultimate question of the night. Well, the simple solution to this road block was to jump on the wagon and open the road ourselves!

We did just that.

We started our research by using trusty Google and looking into how co-ops are run all over the country, and how to potentially begin our own. I began networking with people within the Boulder community who have connections with food movements. I had coffee meeting after coffee meeting, seeing whether there was an interest for such a collective besides the interest from CUGL foodies.

The idea was to start small. Create a pilot program that will test the waters, help us gain experience in such a business, and develop sustainable practices to give us a foundation to eventually grow up and have a store front. Everyday we learned more, and soon enough we were ready to find membership

After we held an informative interest meeting with over 35 student attendees, we knew for certain that we could actually do this over the summer months. We decided to have a cap of 25 member households, but really didn’t expect or necessarily need all 25 memberships. We wrote a handbook, developed rough by-laws, and after potential membership meetings where we developed in great detail our operation’s plan, before we had a chance to sit down we officially had 18 member households and roughly 35 members!

We had our first official membership meeting a week later at the new site of The Second Kitchen Food Co-op. The Co-op is located in the second kitchen of my house (a former duplex since opened into a single unit). The first meeting allowed me to see that this once ‘dream’ of a food coop was now turning into a reality. (I actually cried, it was so amazing!) We gathered with home-cooked food, voted on stock items, and members placed their first orders.

The Co-op has been in operation ever since. We are now a registered LLC! Members are required to give two hours of their time to the co-op each month. One hour goes into distributing member orders every week. This includes weighing out pounds of our stock according to each member’s order for the week. The other hour goes to volunteering at CU Going Local’s community gardens, where if they garden they can take home as much of the harvest as the want.

We have 27 stock items. To name a few: we offer millet, local honey, local mushrooms, farm fresh eggs, spices from a local spice shop, peanut butter, local roasted coffee,sunflower oil, almonds, oats, and the list goes on and will continue to grow. We try our best to source local and regional foods, and consciously choose our stock following the co-op’s knowledge and awareness of the food system in the world.

For example, we choose to not order quinoa specifically because we would like the Peruvians and Bolivians to have access to their mother food before we do. As a replacement, we introduced an equivalent, healthy, and delicious substitute to quinoa: Colorado millet. Most members had never had millet before, and now it is a co-op favorite! This proves that small changes in the choice of the food you buy will add fuel to the overall food movement.

We have a website designed by a fellow TSK (The Second Kitchen) member. The website allows members to see the stock, place orders, pay online, and records member workshare. The website is a gem for bookkeeping, keeping track of stock depletion, and allowing us to see what is high and low in demand. All money spent is recorded. It goes directly back into the coop so we have the ability to buy more stock items and keep the road expanding.

Whew! Just writing all of the success of TSK down makes the overall goal glowing brightly: we are providing healthy and sustainable food at an affordable price! This is just the beginning of the project. We have plans for expansion and growth, but we TSKers take it one day at a time. We continue to learn and build our coop in hopes to one day be a successful and rooted food cooperative ready to feed the people!

Every day I remind myself of why the hours of work are worth it. No matter how busy I am, or how crazy everyone’s schedule gets, what we feed ourselves is what gives us an outstanding life. So, yes, it has been an insane 3 months of work. Yes, I am tired, but no, I’m not hungry.

Love from Boulder,

Sara Brody

 




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CoFED reaches our goal thanks to you!

March 26th, 2011

We did it! Just four months ago CoFed had zero people supporting us on a monthly basis and as of today 112 monthly donors have joined together to support us!

That’s right, 112!

Thank you so very much those who were able to dig deep to support our growth even in these difficult economic times. We were able to pull through and your support was tremendous.

Your efforts will go towards summer retreats, our regional organizing efforts across North America and core staff building administrative systems and resources like our how-to manual and business planning templates over the coming year.

We were able to meet our challenge square in the face and raise around $18,000 annually through folks just like yourself! This is enough to cover travel, location and food for our three summer incubations, which will help launch over 20 cooperative cafes and over 80 college students’ careers as sustainability organizers and social entrepreneurs.

We are extremely proud to be a national, grassroots organization and have a sustainable financial foundation thanks to you!!!

Make sure to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Our social media guru Jeff will be keeping you informed on all the latest happenings with CoFed, our schools, and our allies.

The following generously support CoFed with their monthly donation:

Nathan Downs, Joseph Jordan, Yoni Landau, Melissa Eddison, Sudeep Motupalli Rao, Stuart Reid, Rachel Hochman, Kimberly Frederickson, Samantha Harrington, Nancy Martin, Megan Meo, Robert Thomas, Judith Landau, Mark Baker, Jeanette Baker, Maureen Simpson, Teri Bernstein, David Schwartz, Timothy Jones, Steve Gisselman, Paul Schreiber, Monette Meo, Suparna Dutt, Emily Ciavolino, Itamar Landau, Cathy and Jim Coupe, Amy Ciavolino, Carol Hewitt, Ava Churchill, Gaiakai Panym, Jennifer Cavanaugh, Christine Davis, Aileen Sweeney, Kelly O’Neill, Devlin Seymour, Cory Bensen, Tim McCollum, Sara Eddison, Sol Genauer, Jeff Genauer, Morgan Levey, Julie Flynn, Roger Tuan, Evan Steele, Winton Churchill, Fernando Montero, Matthew Steele, Maja Bengtson, Paul Finkel, Allison Arieff, Robert Corshen, Laura Roeder, Sydney McNulty, Daniel I Feldman, John Haberstroh, Rayna Davis, Chiming Yang, John Roberts, Michael Ciavolino, Andrew Chang, Vinita Goyal, Don Coughlin, Vincent Knowles, Eric DeLuca, James and Joan Massetti, David Pyles, Sheila Eddison, Janet Haun, Daniel Chazin, Keith Masters, Michael Mitrani, Kaelyn Mulligan, Robert Livingston, Vivian Churchill, Rucha Chitnis, Randall Farmer, Dawnn Hills, Jake Horsey, Judith Case, Debi Ambroff, Ian Quirk, Jay Harris, Kathryn Sumberg, Jacob I. Wright, John Yuasa, Kevin Connell, Brian Reff, Holly Roberson, Ruth Haven Bourque, Rodney North, Raines Cohen, Gilad Salmon, Daniel Fireside, Petra Ressler, Gale Singer, Marcia Sitcoske, Rose Weingarten, Daniel Langenthal, Elizabeth Frederickson, Susan Genauer, Aline Bensen, Amelia Stefanac, Grace Miller, Tolu Lawerence, Kristina Johnson, Jodi Anderson, Scott Patterson, Sharon Hay, Meredith Niles, Brian Walker

If you donated but do not see yourself on this list, please contact cory.bensen@cofed.org for more information.

You can still join the ranks of these amazing people by becoming a monthly donor!

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Fueling the Food Revolution: CoFED to train New Generation of Student Leaders

December 2nd, 2010

A recent  Newsweek article titled Divided We Eat featured CoFED supporter Michael Pollan, who pointed out that although organic foods are gaining popularity among the middle class, “The food movement, is still very young”. To the leaders at CoFED, this is a sobering yet “inspirgizing” reality. The fact that the food movement is young means that college students like us have the amazing  opportunity to help shape it’s future – and that’s exciting!



Which is exactly why in January, 20 recent college graduates will converge on the famed Cric House Retreat Center of Sebastopol, California for a week of intensive leadership training that will teach them how to take the CoFED model of ethically-sourced, community-run cafes to campuses all across the country. CoFED will then place these new regional organizers in the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, Southwest regions, joining six West Coast campuses to lead summer trainings for 100 students at over 20 campuses, and teach them how to open their very own organic cafes!

The week-long training will cover a wholesome diet of critical issues such as: food systems, sustainability, social entrepreneurship, cooperation, leadership development, economy, university politics and youth empowerment. In other words… the whole enchilada. Intensive, participatory workshops will be lead by famous food figures while collaboration between attendees will be facilitated by the CoFED staff and other prominent activists in the field.

The retreat will also feature a mini-training for anyone interested in starting, currently organizing or already operating a student-run, sustainable food storefront on their college campus. CoFED is looking for food pioneers who want to join the first six university campuses in demanding real food, and hands-on business training as part of their universities’ curriculum and culture. Getting on board with CoFED now will also allow you to cite your involvement in the transformation of your university food system!



"Tangle Town" will be the venue for many of the retreat's larger workshops..zipline included!

Like all CoFED trainings, the retreat will be highly focused on nurturing the leadership skills of all of its attendees, making this a great experience for anyone interested in green job training or expanding their future career opportunities. Participants will also be able to relax on their down time, by exploring the Cric House’s beautiful pond and farm, delicious food, engaging people, and best of all – kids, as in baby goats!

CoFED will be granting scholarships for folks traveling from afar or in financial need, so if you are curious about CoFED and what we’re doing – don’t be afraid to try us on for size! Let us know you’re coming: RSVP by Dec. 10th to sara.eddison@cofed.org

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