Support Your Local Food Co-op!

I discovered the wonders of food co-ops when I was attending college in Eastern Washington just across the Idaho border from Moscow. In the aisles of the Moscow Food Co-op, I found good food, community, and my ideals reflected. Not long after our moving away, they expanded and moved into a spacious, beautifully renovated grocery store building complete with an organic deli and bakery and an eating area. When we went back to visit, we felt like we were in organic food wonderland. Then when we lived near Portland, we drove into the city once a week to shop at the People’s Food Co-op. It was cozy and fun with beautiful cobb structures and a xeriscape garden out front. Being an urban food co-op and being that we didn’t exactly live in the neighborhood, the community aspect was different, but they had some great classes there and a canned food trading event in the fall. When we moved to Eugene, it was hard to accept that the co-op was only open a few hours at a time a couple of days a week, and none of these hours fit in my schedule. With all the amazing local health food stores like Sundance and Kiva, I wasn’t feeling too deprived. Still, I missed the feeling of pride in ownership of a co-op. Finally, a Friday morning opportunity presented itself while my kids were in school and a friend had a volunteer shift she wanted to hand over to me. I decided it was long past time get involved with Grower’s Market.

I immediately appreciated the peaceful, relaxed, Friday morning grocery shopping experience. I come and set out all the boxes of produces and buckets of bulk oils, nut butters, etc. from the walk-in cooler, and get my shopping done while chatting with fellow volunteers. The 15% discount is a good incentive too. The savings on our weekly groceries were immediately noticeable and when you’re feeding a family organic food on a shoestring budget, this is important. When I talk with the other mothers there about why they volunteer at Grower’s, the answer is almost always that they couldn’t afford to feed their family organic food any other way. This is one of many ways that food co-ops play a vital role in our communities.

Working together for a common purpose creates community. I don’t even shop at the busiest times when everyone is there and the big social scene is happening, nor do I attend any meetings. Still, the handful of people I spend my Friday mornings with feels like a community to me. We talk about our lives as we do our Growers jobs and pick out our nourishing healthy food to feed our children. Sometimes we bring our children on no school days and it gets a little wild in there, but everyone is understanding about it. We talk about how we’re cooking which vegetables and what new food we’ve made. We share our joys and sorrows. You can’t find that at a supermarket.

While it isn’t always easy to balance carrying local goods and produce with carrying produce that hard working families can afford, I think Growers does a decent job at this. With produce coming from the Organically Grown Company, the emphasis on local farms is certainly there. Bulk items are carried and may be ordered from Hummingbird Wholesale, another local business. Among the regular local products are local farm fresh eggs, Nancy’s Yoghurt, beeswax candles, Julia and Jason’s Oak Barrel Kombucha, Genesis Juice, fresh bread from Eugene City Bakery, tinctures and herbal remedies, wildcrafted seaweed and mushrooms, and much more. Within the walls of this co-op, a whole community of people and food come together!

Grower’s Market isn’t fancy, it’s an unassuming old warehouse building with a wooden plank floor, but I love it. The ideals, community, and food housed within those walls are what makes it a special place. If you have a local food co-op where you live, it’s worth going to check it out and see what their membership looks like. Some have an annual membership fee to get the discounts, some have volunteer hour requirements, and often times you can find a regular shift you want to do. Many co-ops offer the discount to nursing mothers, families with very young children, and elders. If there is not co-op, you can always get a group of folks together to work on starting one. This may take time, but it’s worth the effort.

Visit the Grower’s Market website at: http://www.growersmarket.net/

Since it’s always good to know where your food is coming from, check out Organically Grown Company’s website while you’re at it (a very cool company): http://www.organicgrown.com/
and Hummingbird Wholesale’s website: http://www.hummingbirdwholesale.com/

Growers Market can be found at 454 Willamette Street, in the train station parking lot behind Morning Glory Cafe. Growers hours: Tues. 5pm-7pm, Thurs. 2:30pm-7:30pm, Fri. 9am-6:30pm