President's Message: Let's "take it to the bank"

(The following message went out in our June newsletter yesterday, which if you don't get you should sign up for by clicking here.) Before I say anything else, I first want to thank everyone who came out and voted for the Board of Directors at our general membership meeting on May 22nd. It’s truly inspiring to see so many members put the time aside to fully participate in the governance of the Co-op. I speak for the rest of the board and committee members when I say that it’s a real privilege to be “in” this with all of you. And thank you for being "in" it with us. Phew. 259. So we’re done, right? Not quite. While it was great to celebrate the accomplishment of passing our first goal at the membership meeting, we quickly turned to our next goal of 400 member-owners. Two-fifty got us to the point where we can form a real estate committee (anyone interested?) to start looking for potential locations. At 400, we “take it to the bank” by which I literally mean walk into a lending institution and start talking to them about getting some of the financing to open our doors. So if you are one of our member-owners already, your job is to get just one more household to join in the next six months. That’s it. You do that and we’re there. I also urge you to check out the volunteer opportunities below or ask me about joining one of our committees. I recently had an email forwarded to me that was written by a new member of our Marketing and Communications committee. When changing his plans so that he could attend the monthly meeting on May 24 he wrote: “I have decided this is more important to me than my other commitment.” (True story… I’ll forward it to you if you ask!) That’s what it’s going to take to get this done, folks! And – yes – we can do it. Sincerely, Alison L. Fritz President, Board of Directors South Philly Food Co-op