Jesus Christ by Woody Guthrie

I'm always taken aback when I hear folks talk about their social or fiscal conservatism in the same breath as their faith. People forget how controversial Jesus was. From a political perspectives many of his ideas, even now, would be considered distasteful by the mainstream. I wonder, if Jesus came back and ran for president, would conservatives vote for him? I wouldn't. He's too soft on foreign policy and would likely cut our military budget down to zero. He's left of Ron Paul on national defense and I shutter to think what sort of Marxist leviathan a "shirt of your back" inspired social spending policy would unleash.

What would an interview between Jesus and Bill O'reily look like? .

A Brief History Of Inspiration

Someone asked me why I'm doing this. Why I drove over several thousand miles this year, why I'm in Berkeley and why in anyone's name am I writing blog posts at 2am. There are two things that have brought me here, to this point. One is Cooperatives. The other is Food. The politics of food have had a very real impact on my life and my world view. That is anther longer, more sensitive and more involved blog post. I'll start here with an abridged version of how I discovered co-operatives.

Before I found co-ops I had planned on majoring in film and going on to live a life of bohemian austerity while trying to crack it in the movie biz. When I was very young my friends and I would spend our summers making films at the local community college's TV studio. Later in high school I was lucky enough to have an inspired and kick-ass Visual Communication Program at my school. So when I graduated I moved from a small agi-turning-suburban kind of town in Northern California to the sunny beaches of Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara was close to L.A (and the ego and passion driven world I hoped to eventually enter there), yes, but not too close.

As much as I loved my roommates that first year (without them I would never have come to appreciate the unique genius that is Will Ferrell) as much as I do now (seriously) that first year left me wanting for a sense of community. Enter the Santa Barbara Student Housing Cooperative.

A friend of mine made a film about the local housing co-ops. For those that don't know cooperatives are organizations run by and for the benefit of their members. Instead of renting from a landlord, tenets (members) democratically control their living situation. This means everything from cooking together and sharing chores to raising rent and preforming county mandated maintenance.

I quickly went from intrigued to enamored and moved in the next summer. Eventually I was elected to the board of directors. After I attended my first NASCO conference in Ann Arbor I realized I had stumbled onto something powerful and important. Something that was bigger than me or my humble (but formidable !) housing co-op. That revelation eventually led to me to CoFed. Now I can't imagine doing anything else.

I don't think what I've chosen to do with my time and energy is that different from my initial dreams out of high-school. Both film-making and organizing require long hours, careful tiptoeing around big egos, and rarely-to-never result in fabulous riches. Thank-yous can be few and far between, paychecks even fewer and farther. The hours are long sometimes, the backrooms are often political and thing are never what they seem.

But filmmakers, from the director to the boom mic operator, are one of the few people who know what it feels like to bring a shared vision to life. To watch words and ideas manifest in front of you. It's something that you can't understand in any kind of relation to money. Organizing is like that in a lot of ways. The difference being that instead of getting up every morning to make anther film sell, we're getting up every morning to make anther world possible.

The Second Kitchen Project

Cooperative Stories Number 1:
The Second Kitchen Food Co-op

It was a clear and beautiful Santa Barbara Sunday when I was first contacted by three girls in Colorado who wanted to start a food co-op. I'm always excited to meet people with a passion for food and cooperatives. I had no idea what these girl would accomplish in a few short months.

I should provide some context: In addition to being a prolific blogger, I am also the Southern California Regional Director for an organization called the Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive (or CoFed), a small 501(c)3 dedicated to restructuring the food system by providing students with the tools, resources and training necessary for starting food co-operatives on their campuses.

Every time I get a new email, or met anther person interested in co-ops or food justice, it reinvigorates that feeling of shared purpose and hope. So I was excited to get word from Boulder, Colorado. Boulder is a town centered around food. It should come as no surprise then that it is ground zero for some of the most interesting and important food work happening in the United States.

As a Regional Director I check-in regularly with students from across the United States and help connect them to people and resources who can help them. These calls always are exciting and inspiring. But getting to know Sara, Beth and Sabina and their project has been both a thrill and a privilege. A thrill and a privilege that I'd like to share with you:

Ever since I was a little girl growing up in the least populated county east of the Mississippi River, I was aware of the divine right and importance of food. The closest grocery store was two hours east, where we would have to pass over seven mountains of the Appalachian Mountain range to buy food. I was taught that becoming self sufficient was the necessary option. Buying in bulk was crucial for my family in order for us to save trips to faraway lands. That is where my inspiration to ‘feed the people’ was sparked.

Everyone, no matter where they live or what their income may be, should always have access to healthy, local, and organic food. Fortunately for me, my food seed was planted early on in my life. So what leads me to be asked to blog for this awesome organization? I can say that I, along with my core group of foodie cohorts (Beth and Sabina), has successfully founded and are currently operating a small food cooperative in three short months.

The idea to start this project in Boulder was initially planted at a Real Food Challenge Convergence in 2010 held in Missoula, Montana. As a member and leader of the University of Colorado at Boulder’s student group CU Going Local, I journeyed 15 hours north to attend the convergence to be exposed to other student groups that shared similar interests and passion that surrounds all aspects and issues regarding what feeds us. A few of us attended a workshop on Co-ops. After the workshop, I never had felt such a surge of importance for people to have universal access to affordable and healthy food!

We left the convergence with many ideas and aspirations on starting a Food Co-op for CU students. Alas, time marched forward, and we were thrown once again in the bustle of college life and commitments. We put the idea of a food coop on the back burner...for over a year.

On one snowy day in April 2011, CU Going Local hosted our monthly potluck when one of the discussions that bubbled to the surface was the need for a food coop in Boulder. At the potluck we discussed how expensive local food is in the town, and how easy it is for college students to go the cheap route rather than the healthier one. How to merge the two routes was the ultimate question of the night. Well, the simple solution to this road block was to jump on the wagon and open the road ourselves!

We did just that.

We started our research by using trusty Google and looking into how co-ops are run all over the country, and how to potentially begin our own. I began networking with people within the Boulder community who have connections with food movements. I had coffee meeting after coffee meeting, seeing whether there was an interest for such a collective besides the interest from CUGL foodies.

The idea was to start small. Create a pilot program that will test the waters, help us gain experience in such a business, and develop sustainable practices to give us a foundation to eventually grow up and have a store front. Everyday we learned more, and soon enough we were ready to find membership

After we held an informative interest meeting with over 35 student attendees, we knew for certain that we could actually do this over the summer months. We decided to have a cap of 25 member households, but really didn’t expect or necessarily need all 25 memberships. We wrote a handbook, developed rough by-laws, and after potential membership meetings where we developed in great detail our operation’s plan, before we had a chance to sit down we officially had 18 member households and roughly 35 members!

We had our first official membership meeting a week later at the new site of The Second Kitchen Food Co-op. The Co-op is located in the second kitchen of my house (a former duplex since opened into a single unit). The first meeting allowed me to see that this once ‘dream’ of a food coop was now turning into a reality. (I actually cried, it was so amazing!) We gathered with home-cooked food, voted on stock items, and members placed their first orders.

The Co-op has been in operation ever since. We are now a registered LLC! Members are required to give two hours of their time to the co-op each month. One hour goes into distributing member orders every week. This includes weighing out pounds of our stock according to each member’s order for the week. The other hour goes to volunteering at CU Going Local’s community gardens, where if they garden they can take home as much of the harvest as the want.

We have 27 stock items. To name a few: we offer millet, local honey, local mushrooms, farm fresh eggs, spices from a local spice shop, peanut butter, local roasted coffee,sunflower oil, almonds, oats, and the list goes on and will continue to grow. We try our best to source local and regional foods, and consciously choose our stock following the co-op’s knowledge and awareness of the food system in the world.

For example, we choose to not order quinoa specifically because we would like the Peruvians and Bolivians to have access to their mother food before we do. As a replacement, we introduced an equivalent, healthy, and delicious substitute to quinoa: Colorado millet. Most members had never had millet before, and now it is a co-op favorite! This proves that small changes in the choice of the food you buy will add fuel to the overall food movement.

We have a website designed by a fellow TSK (The Second Kitchen) member. The website allows members to see the stock, place orders, pay online, and records member workshare. The website is a gem for bookkeeping, keeping track of stock depletion, and allowing us to see what is high and low in demand. All money spent is recorded. It goes directly back into the coop so we have the ability to buy more stock items and keep the road expanding.

Whew! Just writing all of the success of TSK down makes the overall goal glowing brightly: we are providing healthy and sustainable food at an affordable price! This is just the beginning of the project. We have plans for expansion and growth, but we TSKers take it one day at a time. We continue to learn and build our coop in hopes to one day be a successful and rooted food cooperative ready to feed the people!

Every day I remind myself of why the hours of work are worth it. No matter how busy I am, or how crazy everyone’s schedule gets, what we feed ourselves is what gives us an outstanding life. So, yes, it has been an insane 3 months of work. Yes, I am tired, but no, I’m not hungry.

Love from Boulder,

Sara Brody

Citizen Radio Interview with Rebecca Watson and Neil deGrasse Tyson

I won't have time to start this blog project in earnest until the weekend (best case). Citizen Radio interviewed Rebecca Watson and Neil deGrasse Tyson at The Amazing Meeting. I posted the interview below. I'd be thrilled to listen and discuss your take on the ideas discussed.

(2011/07/21) Neil deGrasse Tyson and Rebecca Watson: "

Episode #339 Jamie's back from TAM and bagged some amazing interviews with Neil deGrasse Tyson and Rebecca Watson. Tyson is an American astrophysicist, science communicator, the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, and a Research Associate in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. Since 2006 he has hosted the educational science television show NOVA scienceNOW on PBS, and has been a frequent guest on The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Jeopardy. Tyson (@neiltyson) discusses the importance of science, Republicans, and how science is more spectacular than religion.

Rebecca Watson AKA Skepchick (skepchick.org) returns to the show to discuss abortion, abstinence only policies, feminism, and asshole atheists.

Jamie's episode of The Green Room airs on Showtime the first week of August. Check your local listings!

Citizen Radio is a member-supported show. Visit http://wearecitizenradio.com to sign up and support.

Looking For CoFed Related Updates?

Then check out www.cofed.org . This blog thing is under construction .

Cheers,
--Jake

Strategic Planning!

The Cooperative Food Empowerment Network (www.cofed.org) is doing strategic planning this summer! I'd have a lot more to say on the subject if I wasn't so busy doing it right now.