We have gained 2 new members this week bringing our founding member total up to 76. We continue to grow and are working on strategies to increase this rate of growth so we can meet our short term goal of having 300 members by May 1. We are having our first potluck dinner of the new year next Monday, Jan. 14 at 6:30 p.m. in the St. Roch neighborhood at the First Pilgrim Baptist Church at 1228 Arts (half a block from the corner of Franklin and Marais). As always our potluck dinners are open to anyone and everyone. Friends, family, adn children of all ages are welcome. This is a very important community event and we encourage everyone to attend. It is very essential that our current members and others who have been involved with the co-op attend to help welcome new faces to our food co-op.

We had success with our December info meeting and are hoping to repeat this with our January potluck/info meeting. Our thorough flyering of the Marigny/Bywater was a large part of the reason we had a good attendance at this December meeting. We plan to do widespread door to door flyering in the St. Roch and surrounding neighborhoods for this potluck and info meeting. Please call John at 914-6936 if you can help with this effort. If you aren’t available to help with flyering, please bring a friend to the potluck or spread the word in other ways. We are gradually getting closer to our membership goals and our larger goal of opening a storefront, and we will need an even larger and more inclusive and widespread effort to ensure that our store opens. At this critical time in our development we need the widespread involvement of our membership and our community to open our store. A good attendance at this potluck and other community outreach events is essential in growing our membership and increasing our community involvement and support which will both be necessary for our store to open.

Get involved!! We are having our next membership committee meeting on Saturday Jan. 12 at 4 p.m. at the Sound Cafe. This is a great way for people to get involved with growing our membership and community outreach. We are currently working on many strategies to grow our membership and spread the word about what we are doing. There are many ways to be involved regardless of interest or skill level. We are excited about continuing to see our co-op infused with new faces and fresh ideas in the new year.