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Acres Co-op Market is a member-owned, for-profit community grocery offering food and education for Hudson and Columbia County, New York.
Questions? Comments?
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__________________ Big, handsome, sturdy Acres Co-op tote bags are now on sale for $10. They're all-natural cotton and produced locally by Tivoli Ink.
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Glimpses: Indoor Market
We had a very successful experience providing a place for vendors to sell their fresh, local goods. Thanks to our customers and the sellers. Please remember to patronize the Indoor Spring Market at Christ Church Episcopal, 431 Union St., Hudson beginning the first Saturday in March, as well as LICK the Market, 253 Warren St., Hudson throughout March.
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Co-op Year-end Review 2011
Our progress and good fortune result from the hard work of many people. We stand on the shoulders of the community, of those who came before us, and our friends and supporters. Please continue to help us get the co-op up and running in 2012. Here is a summary of what was accomplished last year:
Media Mentions
In-kind donations of professional services
Networking Initiatives
Eighty-three meetings with business, municipal, volunteer, neighborhood, and community leaders; as well as farmers, producers, and other potential vendors, involving 235 people.
Memberships
35 far-seeing members of the community have purchased memberships in advance of, and to help facilitate, the co-op’s opening. We have over 100 pledge-now, pay-later memberships.
...
Accomplishments
May – December
Six community listening/participation meetings, with total attendance in excess of 435 people
May
June
July
August
September
November
December
Media Mentions
- Five stories in Hudson’s “Register-Star” newspaper
- Three interviews on WGXC-FM 90.7
- Eighteen mentions in area blogs
In-kind donations of professional services
- Legal counsel
- Architectural and engineering
- Management
- Development and fundraising
- Public relations
- Accounting
Networking Initiatives
Eighty-three meetings with business, municipal, volunteer, neighborhood, and community leaders; as well as farmers, producers, and other potential vendors, involving 235 people.
Memberships
35 far-seeing members of the community have purchased memberships in advance of, and to help facilitate, the co-op’s opening. We have over 100 pledge-now, pay-later memberships.
...
Accomplishments
May – December
Six community listening/participation meetings, with total attendance in excess of 435 people
May
- Columbia-Hudson Partnership technical assistance award
- Participation in co-op development conference in Massachusetts
June
- Bliss Tower presentation
- Providence Hall presentation
- Membership drive begun
July
- Co-op incorporated
- Website and listserv created
- Organization bank account opened
- Board of directors formed, board committees formed
August
- Potential store site located
- Volunteer Membership Director appointed
September
- Hudson Community Planning and Development Agency presentation
- Hudson Development Corporation presentation
- Rotary Club presentation
November
- Neighborhood party and store cleaning
December
- Pop-up market during Winter Walk
- First benefactor donation
- Volunteer Director of Development and Fundraising appointed
- Volunteer Director of Communication appointed
- Nonprofit fiscal agent secured
Acres Co-Op Market Announces
- First major donation
- Fiscal agent, new board members, and new volunteer staff
- Benefit at Park Falafel January 7, 2012
(Dec. 10, 2011) Acres Co-op Market (acrescoop.com) board chairman Peter Pehrson credited “an established Warren Street business person who believes strongly in the co-op” for moving the organization toward financial stability with an anonymous donation of $6,000. The funds, dedicated toward the first year’s lease payments, brings the opening of the co-op closer in its projected home at 704 Columbia Street.
Cooperative Development Institute (cdi.coop) will provide this donor and future contributors with charitable tax-deductible benefits. CDI, a leader in cooperative business support services, will be the co-op’s fiscal agent. This arrangement allows the co-op, though a for-profit enterprise, to receive donations through a 501(c)3 non-profit third party.
New members elected to the Board of Directors are Mona Coade-Wingate, Justin Goldman, and Gideon Crevoshay, all Hudson residents involved in local food. Coade-Wingate is a community organizer and chef. Goldman manages Park Falafel. Crevosahy is prominent on the local music scene and a food co-op business consultant. They complement existing board members Walter G. Ritchie, Jr., Ellen Thurston, and Peter Pehrson.
Staff volunteer leaders assuming positions immediately are Director of Development and Fundraising Susan Ball and Director of Communications Jonathan Lerner. Ball was the founding executive director of The Sylvia Center (sylviacenter.org, “inspiring children to eat better”) and is currently program director at New York Foundation for the Arts (nyfa.org). She lives in Hudson. Lerner is a writer, editor and communications consultant specializing in architecture, urbanism and design who works from homes in Hudson and New York City. “Nothing is more critical to good urban living than being able to walk to to your food,” he says of the co-op’s value to Hudson residents. Ball and Lerner join Director of Membership Linda Aydlett in handling co-op operations.
Park Falafel (parkfalafelandpizza.com) is sponsoring a day-long benefit for the co-op on Saturday, January 7, 2012. When customers mention Acres Co-op Market while ordering, the total sale amount (minus tax) will go to the co-op. Park Falafel is at 11 North Seventh Street (between Warren and Columbia Streets).
Winter Walk December 2011
We had tons of visitors, sold memberships, took membership pledges, decorated the outside of the building in lights, enjoyed wonderful food and wine from our many vendors. Can't we do this every Saturday night?!?!
Hearty thanks to Mona for her energies, contacts, empanadas, and organizational skills, to the many vendors who sold products and made friends out of new customers. Our volunteer corps distributed flyers, swept floors, hung lights, ran errands, and the whole event was a textbook case of collaboration and cooperation. Many thanks to Hudson Opera House (Kristen, Joe, Gary, Ellen and their able assistants) for all their hard work and ideas. Stay tuned for more!
Hearty thanks to Mona for her energies, contacts, empanadas, and organizational skills, to the many vendors who sold products and made friends out of new customers. Our volunteer corps distributed flyers, swept floors, hung lights, ran errands, and the whole event was a textbook case of collaboration and cooperation. Many thanks to Hudson Opera House (Kristen, Joe, Gary, Ellen and their able assistants) for all their hard work and ideas. Stay tuned for more!
Mona Coade-Wingate
setting up
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Honey and Maple Syrup from
Ray Tousey of Germantown NY
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Monica of Tierra Farms and
Holly of Berkshire Bakery
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Two Regency Gents
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Check this out ...
Jackie Thomas produced and engineered a segment of radio station 90.7 WGXC-FM "What's Going On?," in which Elaine Fernandez interviewed Peter Pehrson on co-op basics, plans, goals, and operations.
You can listen here: http://archive.free103point9.org/2011/11/WhatsGoingOn_JackieThomas_20111030.mp3
You can listen here: http://archive.free103point9.org/2011/11/WhatsGoingOn_JackieThomas_20111030.mp3
Membership Advantages
While membership is not a requirement to shop at the Co-op, it does have substantial advantages. These include:
- the ability to donate member labor of up to 12 hours a month in the store in exchange for up to 24% off a monthly grocery bill.
- the ability to exchange member labor for the cost of membership.
- special notices about sales, discounts, and programs.
- being an owner of a neighborhood business.
- having a voice at the table to help make management decisions and vote for Board members.
- knowing that your membership fee was part of the founding finances that opened the Co-op doors.
Cooperatives Build a Better World
- They provide healthy food
- They support the local economy, help preserve family farms, and help keep small farmers and ranchers in business by sourcing locally
- They keep money within the community
- They use environmentally sound practices including recycling and reduced packaging and energy
- They are committed to consumer education about food and food issues
- They are community gathering places and, in many rural areas, community focal points
- They have direct relationships with and buy from Fair Trade producers
- They provide satisfying jobs with good pay and better benefits than most retail jobs
- They hire and train local people and promote from within
- They give to the community: they make contributions to local causes and 27 food co-ops across the nation have cooperative community funds that support local non-profits
In the News ...
- Co-op to open winter market (Wednesday, January 4, 2012)
- WGXC Radio audio recording "What's Going On" (October 30, 2011)
- Acres Food Co-op makes steady progress toward opening
- Winter Cleaning
- Food Co-op eyes Hudson site as it raises rent money (Sunday, Sep 25, 2011)
- Food co-op offers local food, local money (Saturday, August 20, 2011)
- Albany co-op representative to address meeting of Acres co-op Wednesday (Tuesday, August 9, 2011)
- Acres Co-Op Market Listening Meeting & Community Forum (6/28/11, Recorded by Sara Kendall, WGXC Radio)
- Voice your opinion on co-op structure (Tuesday, June 14, 2011)
- Acres Co-op Market Listening Meeting and Community Forum (Recorded 6/14/11 by Christina Malisoff, WGXC Radio)
- Fresh food lovers start planning for city co-op (Saturday, June 4, 2011)
