An urban first home for roots, commitment, and creativity A Community Investment
Tell-Tales signs of home improvement to this unique house and setting by first-time home buyers Lotus Lofgren and Ian McNamara have many stories of their laborious efforts and also joys. In addition to projects remaining on the house, they continue to do landscaping including adding the brick colimns across the front and some at rear. They need more bricks to continue the columns across the front of recently added sideyard that will also become a community garden. Truly a great addition to our accolades called Kudos Homes and Gardens!
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.… Read the rest “An urban first home for roots, commitment, and creativity A Community Investment”
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 for local economies and quality small-scale production. We hope the P6 designation boosts sales for these producers and businesses, while also giving our shoppers a quick way to identify products and companies we”'ve vetted as ”˜the best of the best.”'”
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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
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 sponsored the extra incentive so more people can come out and purchase delicious, affordable food!”
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