Dave Finet, General Manager
We’re contributing $1500 in support of the Food for Change documentary based on the suggestion in the funding plan and because we understand the importance of getting the story of the history of co-ops out so that people will realize how powerful a tool economic cooperation can be in times like these.
As one of the many co-ops in Michigan, we’ve seen that our stores provide more than just great food. We also provide a community for our owners and shoppers in good times and in bad. We believe very strongly that Food for Change will help frame and explain the cooperative ideal, and for that it deserves the support of the coop community.
The East Lansing Food Co-op was founded as a buying club in the early 1970’s and opened its first storefront in 1976. Located in the hometown of Michigan State University (the first land-grant institution in the US), the co-op is owned by 3100 members, employs 19 staff members, and achieved $1.9 million in sales in 2010. We are proud of our longtime support of local growers and producers in this the second most agriculturally diverse state in the country. We are currently hard at work looking into ways to support local food systems and last year we acquired a restored 1947 Co-op brand E3 tractor, which looks like the tractor that is in the trailer of Food For Change. We’d be glad to loan out our tractor to anyone who wants to use it!
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“The greatest delight the fields and woods minister is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me and I to them.”
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