Dear Legislator,

If Katrina taught us anything, it is how precious and delicate is the food supply.

I’m a member/supporter of the New Orleans Food Cooperative (NOFC), and am writing to ask you to please support the Capital Outlay funding for our community-owned grocery store.  When we open, our cooperative store will have at least 1000 New Orleanian owners.

We will open in 2010 as an anchor tenant in the New Orleans Healing Center, which will provide community-related projects and services in the historic Universal Furniture Building, corner of St. Claude and St. Roch.  We must secure funding for the brick-and-mortar build-out of the store itself.

Our focus and commitment is to local and regional producers first, and so we will help revitalize small and mid-size farming in the region, as well as smallholder value-added foods and personal care products.

Our grocery store will be a welcome addition to an area that still has few options to make groceries, and we find that “both sides” of St. Claude are anxiously awaiting our opening. Access to affordable healthy groceries should be a basic right, and we need your help to bring this access to New Orleans, starting with the Ninth Ward.

Please support Capital Outlay funding for the New Orleans Food Cooperative.

Sincerely,