www.fairbankscoop.org - Fairbanks Community Cooperative Market - proposed for Fairbanks, Alaska

Fairbanks Coop Listserve -

Coop Brochure -

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Vision statement:

"The Fairbanks Community Cooperative Market works for health and sustainability by providing natural foods and products, promoting local suppliers, and offering consumer education in an open community center environment."

The Cooperative Principles:

Worldwide over 760 million people are members of cooperatives, united by the the Cooperative Principles

  • VOLUNTARY AND OPEN MEMBERSHIP
  • DEMOCRATIC MEMBER CONTROL
  • MEMBER ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION
  • AUTONOMY AND INDEPENDENCE
  • EDUCATION, TRAINING AND INFORMATION
  • COOPERATION AMONG COOPERATIVES
  • CONCERN FOR COMMUNITY

Adopted by the International Cooperative Alliance 1995

[Link Here] Article about the Coop in the News-Miner

[Link Here] Battle for the Soul of Organic

Please send any comments or information: dlacey@mosquitonet.com We would love to post your garden pictures!

If you do not wish to have the information you send to this email address posted to the web or distributed otherwise, be sure to make that clear in your email.

We are setting up a listserve for the coop. Please send an email and subscribe. The info is below. That way we can communicate with each other better. Anyone can post input for everyone that way. We need all input and help that we can get.

Group Email Addresses:
Post message: FairbanksCoop@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe: FairbanksCoop-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe: FairbanksCoop-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
List owner: FairbanksCoop-owner@yahoogroups.com

Resource Links: Updated March 25, 2007

Feel free to peruse the resources gathered from many different places like flyers, online links, etc. The first are from the Northwest Coop Development Center in Olympia, WA developed for their educational programs designed to stimulate coop development in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. The others are examples of materials collected from various coops around the country illustrating how they operate and the consumer educational materials that they provide.

Click on any of the following links for details:

[Link Here] A Primer on Consumer Co-op Membership

[Link Here] A Recommended Membership Structure

[Link Here] About Member Loans

[Link Here] Creating a Committee Charter

[Link Here] Grow Your Own Food Co-op

Facilitated by Andrew McLeod
Part Two: Growing Leaders and Members

[Link Here] Grow Your Own Food Co-op

Facilitated by Andrew McLeod
Part Three: Feasibility and Finance

[Link Here] COOPS Do it Better with Democracy

[Link Here] Food Front Cooperative (page 1)

[Link Here] Food Front Cooperative (page 2)

[Link Here] People Shares (page 1)

[Link Here] People Shares (page 2)

[Link Here] Types of Flour (page 1)

[Link Here] Types of Flour (page 2)-->

 

            
"Locavore" is 2007 word of the year:
The New Oxford American Dictionary chose locavore, a person who seeks out locally produced food, as its word of the year. The local foods movement is gaining momentum as people discover that the best-tasting and most sustainable choices are foods that are fresh, seasonal, and grown close to home. Some locavores draw inspiration from the 100-mile diet or from advocates of local eating like Barbara Kingsolver. Others just follow their taste buds to farmers' markets, community supported agriculture programs, and community gardens. Check out Local Harvest to find sustainably grown food near you, and make a New Year's Resolution to be a locavore in 2008!		Food is the one consumer choice we have to make every
day. We can use that buying power in a transaction
that burns excessive fossil fuels, erodes topsoil,
supports multinationals that pay their workers just a
few bucks a day -- or the same money could strengthen
neighborhood food economies, keep green spaces alive
around our towns, and compensate farmers for applying
humane values. Every purchase weighs in on one side or
the other. It just isn't possible to opt out.
Otherwise, if you're going to eat food, you belong to
some kind of food chain. The goal of this book is to
reveal that truth.

It's not necessary to live on a farm to eat mindfully,
but it's necessary to know farms exist, and have some
appreciation for what they do. It takes a little
background to recognize the social, biological and
epicurean differences between CAFOs [Concentrated
Animal Feeding Operations] and pasture operations,
extractive vs. sustainable farming, or even what will
be in season each month of the year. Amazingly, the
outcome of responsible choices can be good health,
money saved and a happy palate. Really, it's good news.

Barbara Kingsolver

  • Each year, the average American consumes 260 pounds of imported food.
  • 98.7% of foods imported into the U.S. are NOT inspected by the FDA for safety.
  • Of the scant 1.3% of imported foods the FDA tests, over 200 shipments of grains, fish, vegetables, nuts, spice, oils and other imported foods are detained each month for issues ranging from filth to unsafe food coloring to contamination with pesticides to salmonella.
  • The other 98.7% of untested food is immediately green-lighted for the American diet.
  • The U.S. imports almost twice as much food today as it did just ten years ago, yet the FDA's budget for testing imports has been cut nearly in half since 2000.
  • Source: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/