Message From The GM
Greetings Everyone;
Well… it’s definitely been a crazy, hectic, and challenging past few months. We’ve been shunted around to different locations, had to change the way members picked up their orders, went to three deliveries per month, and even started “home-deliveries” – yet throughout it all we kept on keeping on.
Know that we’re still not out of the COVID woods yet… especially as the number of cases here in town has been increasing of late… but, from an operational point of view, we’ve been able to establish a “new normal” for deliveries, parking-lot pickups, and working out of St. Gregory’s church. Many thanks go out to Father Dwight for so graciously letting us use their facility when everything else was closed to us.
The good news is that despite the viral disruptions our Co-op is still growing! Every month we’ve gained new members and sales were up by 48% for the past two months… and are up by 17% for the year-to- date. To handle the increased volume we’ve recently hired two more part-time assistants to help streamline our deliveries as well as provide for some institutional operational memory… basically a deeper bench to keep our operation running smoothly.
Speaking of smoother deliveries… a huge THANK YOU needs to go out to all the members who have been showing up to help sort and organize everyone’s orders – and also to all those members who have agreed to pre-pay for their orders in advance of the delivery. Prepayments have been a HUGE help in getting everyone’s orders out the door and into your cars and homes in a timely fashion.
Lastly, every member should be proud of being part of our Co-op for more reasons than one but… from my perspective… a large reason is how we’ve been able to “step-up-to-the-plate” and support our community during these trying times. “Concern for One’s Community” is the 7th governing principle that all cooperatives should operate under and over these past few months we’ve been able to support several members in financial distress as well as provide numerous local organizations with both financial and food assistance. Not to mention helping send over a ton of food up to Pelican!
Yes… we’ve seen some trying and challenging times of late… and we’re definitely not out of the woods yet… but despite the challenges… we are still: “Bringing Good Food & Community Together.”
Cooperatively Yours;
Keith Nyitray – General Manager