The one year old Delridge Produce Co-Op, formed to enable Delridge neighborhood residents to buy quality produce held an important meeting last week in which they chose to answer a fundamental question.

"How do you imagine DPC meeting our neighborhood's produce needs?"



The group came up with some clear and useful answers. A sort of roadmap of goals and desires.

1. Close to home, place to buy healthy produce

2. Accessible by means other than car

3. Resource for food security infrastructure

4. Pesticide-free and grown in clean fertilizer

5. Organic

6. Open to other neighborhoods' members

7. It should be a carefully-grown organization

8. Encourage local farmers

9. Fertilizer-safety education

10. Local fruit gleaning

11. Collaboration with local organizations / cooperation

12. Food preparation education / recipes

13. Affordability through bulk purchasing

14. Low overhead

15. DPC creating neighborhood gardening I.E. square foot gardening

16. EBT - accept food stamps

17. Nutrition education, parent-friendly meal planning

18. Seed-to-consumer planning

19. Cheaper than non-organic grocery store produce pricing



Common themes that we discovered in the above visioning:



Education

Food Safety

Proximity

Food Security/Resiliency

Cost Savings

Collaboration

Community
Projects/Work



These are the steps the group came up with to accomplish these goals.

1. Convene a core group, identify needs, gather information

Our core group has identified what our main goals are, and established this list of what needs to get done.


2. Organize: hold a meeting of potential members, select a steering committee

We have four steering committee members now.  We need more!  Please let us know if you can commit to at least two hour-long meetings per month and ten hours of volunteer time per month.  We know that many of you wanted to make it to the Borscht and Bagels event.  There are a lot of potential members out there.  If you think you might be someone who would shop at Delridge Produce Cooperative, please email us with the subject "Potential Member."  We'll keep you in mind, and when it's time, you'll be among the first to join and vote on co-op issues!


3. Research feasibility: Survey potential members and conduct market research. 
Conduct a feasibility study. 
Last summer, during our 'Mobile Market' project, we surveyed more than 500 people.  We found that most people were willing to buy their produce from a local produce stand, but we still have not had a professional feasibility study done.  If you've got the skills or resources to do a feasibility study for DPC for free, we could really use your help!


4. Review findings and incorporate; bylaws and beginning fundraising

We need YOUR input to start making bylaws; we need bylaws to incorporate; we have to incorporate to fundraise.  We're still looking to expand our core group so that the bylaws we make are more representative of the community.  Here's your chance to have your say - get involved!


5. Recruit members

We'll be at festivals and events all spring and summer, letting people know that we're here!  You can volunteer to be on a festival team or organizing committee.


6. Prepare a detailed business plan

If you've done this for another business, we'd love to hear your voice of experience!


7. Secure financing

None of us have a house to use for collateral for a loan, so we'll be looking for fundraising and grant opportunities to help us get started.  Any organizations which would like to partner with us are very welcome to put forward proposals :-)


8. Organize/build/prepare

Once we've got the money to do it, it will be time to take the final steps toward actually selling produce by preparing the venue.  Who knows what shape our final business will take?  It could be a produce cart, a produce bus, a produce stand, a produce store - it's still open to any possibility, and it's up to YOU to get involved now and decide what path we take!


9. OPEN FOR BUSINESS!


You've been hearing about us for more than a year. 
We believe in our community's ability to meet its own produce needs.  We want to hear from you!

You can contact the Co-Op through their website at the link above or via email delridgeproducecoop@gmail.com