‘Miscellany’ Archives
An urban first home for roots, commitment, and creativity A Community Investment
by Lotus Lofgren In all, we looked at over one hundred properties. Every weekend we would create etch-a-sketch lines across town, peering in broken windows, walking through abandoned yards where the grass grew past my knees, and sheepishly apologizing to current renters as we disrupted their day, tiptoed around their child”'s play things and wondered where they would go once someone bought the place. The houses held stories, old stories that we would never know, and others more recent and potent; an orange home that had suffered years at the hands of absentee landlords, been foreclosed on and left its tenants homeless. They scrawled their anger on the lime green walls, words written with human feces and punctuated with urine, a two story white house with all of the upper unit windows blown out from a grease fire in the kitchen. I won”'t forget the charred women”'s shoes, still hanging on a rack attached to half a closet door. A yellow house where the previous [...]
Seward Co-Op Creates Rating for Excellence and Cooperative Ethics “Principle Six” “preferred products” Debuts Oct. 2
by Lindsey Frey and Tom Vogel Seward Co-op Grocery & Deli launches a new product rating system October 2nd that highlights products from small, local farmers and producers, as well as cooperative businesses. Going beyond the expected “organic” and “local” labeling, conscientious shoppers can select and purchase items produced in the most responsible ways possible. Principle Six (P6) is an initiative created by Seward Co-op and five consumer grocery cooperatives nationwide in partnership with Equal Exchange, a worker-owned cooperative encourage consumers to use purchasing dollars to support small, local farmers and producers, as well as cooperative businesses. “Historically, many co-op shoppers have aligned their grocery purchases with companies that best represent their values,” said Sean Doyle, general manager of Seward Co-op. “While organic and fair trade are very important, P6 takes into account other values, including support [...]
FREE $5. Match to First $5. EBT Dollars Spent at 3 Markets on Produce
EBT Recipients Have a New Reason to Shop at 3 Farmers Markets By Katie Eukel Recipients of food assistance can now use their EBT cards to purchase affordable, healthy and tasty food at the Midtown, Minneapolis, and Northeast Farmers Markets in Minneapolis. These markets will also encourage EBT users to eat well by offering an incentive””Market Bucks coupons, which will match the first $5 an EBT user spends on fresh produce at these markets with an additional $5 in Market Bucks. That amounts to $10 in produce for the first $5 spent. “Midtown Farmers Market was the first market in the Twin Cities to accept EBT cards,” says Jessica Ward-Denison, of the Midtown Farmers Market. “The Market Bucks program has already nearly tripled the number of EBT customers at the Midtown Market, compared to last year. We”'re excited to see EBT services launched at the Minneapolis and Northeast Markets this summer, and equally grateful that community partners [...]
