Orcas Food Co-op Looking for More Members

— from Lisa Byers, President of the Board, Orcas Food Co-op —

The Orcas Food Co-op is getting closer to opening day. We’ll announce the date as soon as we know what it is. It will definitely be this spring. If you haven’t become a member yet, I invite you to join now. Why now and not after we open?

Simply put: the Co-op could use your financial investment to help pay for the final phase of renovation.

When we researched options for starting a Co-op, experts told us that we should budget no less than $1 million for the size of store that we intended. We were stunned. At that time we thought $400,000 was going to be sufficient – at most $500,000. This was fairly early in our planning process, so we knew we still had a lot to learn. But we also knew that to succeed we needed to limit out debt and maximize the amount of equity.

So, we sharpened our pencils (well, actually we pored over our spreadsheets), and we inventoried the advantages we had that we figured other Co-ops likely did not have. At the top of the list:

1. The ability to take over the lease of the space formerly occupied by a health food store (Homegrown Market) that had been successful in the past.
2. Investors wiling to gift the Co-op with equity as well as low interest rate loans.
3. A skilled contractor (Ken Katz) willing to donate his time to lead a volunteer crew in renovating the space.

This last point is particularly critical. Skilled contractors and those of us who are semi-skilled, yet eager to work, have donated tens of thousands of dollars worth of labor to the Co-op. The space is being totally transformed with the goal of packing the most products into the space with the greatest amount of efficiency possible.

So, as we head into the home stretch, each individual who becomes a member will reduce the amount we need to borrow in order to open the store. Your $240 membership helps us pay for appropriate store shelving, display units and storage containers for bulk goods, misters to keep our produce fresh or signage and branding to help highlight our local producers.

Become a member today and help the Orcas Food Co-op succeed.