Membership News - April, 2009

—by Naomi Jackson, Membership Coordinator

Well, we made it! Our new section is up and running. A huge thank you to the many volunteers who scrubbed stoves and sinks, painted, moved heavy equipment, restocked shelves, cleaned the floor, provided laughter and encouragement, and much, much more. You have just seen a volunteer co-op in action. Things don’t always go quite according to plan, but things get done, and they get done willingly and cheerfully.

How volunteer co-ops work

If you have never volunteered at Hampden Park Co-op, you might wonder what this volunteer stuff is all about. When food cooperatives first appeared in the Twin Cities 40 years ago, they were almost entirely run by volunteers. The co-ops were started so their members could buy inexpensive, healthful foods in bulk. Member volunteers did all of the ordering, unloading trucks, cutting cheese, filling orders, collecting money, and so on.

As time passed, some co-ops became larger and began hiring staff, while others succumbed to changes in the economic and social scene. For many years, the successful co-ops continued to use volunteers along with paid staff.

However, the 1990s brought another change. The strongest co-ops kept getting bigger, and soon it became detrimental to their business model to rely on volunteer labor. Also, the formation of the Twin Cities Natural Food Co-ops (TCNFC), while providing many advantages to member co-ops, also encouraged a uniformity that ended up discouraging the use of volunteers.

Hampden Park Co-op today

Today there are about a dozen food co-ops in the greater metropolitan area. All but one are members of TCNFC. Hampden Park Co-op is the lone holdout, and is the only Twin Cities co-op with a volunteer program. Currently we have around 450 volunteers (about 1/5 of our active membership) helping out in the store, cutting cheese, maintaining our gardens, providing music, writing for the newsletter, doing odd jobs, and much more.

If you’d like to know more about how our volunteer program works, leave me a note in the Membership Coordinator envelope in the entryway, or e-mail me at naomijx@juno.com. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!