Food for Thought

We’re striving to create a happy and healthy community in Medford. Primarily we do this by offering high-quality natural, organic and locally produced food. It’s also important for us to support the community by assisting other groups that are helping others. Several times a week, we donate blemished produce to the Medford Gospel Mission. The Mission is able to use the produce for meals prepared at the Main Ingredient Community Restaurant. The restaurant serves a free meal seven days a week to as many as 200 people a day.

We participate in the Farm to School Fuji Apple program. This program is a partner- ship that includes Organically Grown Company, participating retailers and organic Fuji apple orchards all in the Northwest. Growers, retailers and the distributor all donate a portion of the profit from bags of Fuji apples sold. The donations support our local Farm to Schools programs. Since October 2013, many of our customers have sought out and purchased these apples and enabled the Co-op to donate $870 to Rogue Valley Farm to School.

Last fall, Dave of Griffin Creek Coffee Roasters was in the store frequently offering coffee samples. Then, Dave offered to provide us a coffee brewer and coffee so that we could offer coffee daily. We asked customers for a free will donation and every month we contribute the coffee donations to a local charity. Since October, we have contributed to the following groups:

• $100 to Sr. Kohles Mammography Fund

• $175 to Cooperative Development Fund – relief to rebuild co-ops destroyed by the tsunami in the Philippines. This wasn’t local, but was a way for us to help other co-ops.

• $119 to Bikers Have Heart

• $136 to Our Family Farms Coalition

Thank you for helping us demonstrate that our daily decisions do make a difference!