Volunteer Opportunities!
March 2024 Newsletter
Thank you to our 784 paid members and our 2,800+ newsletter subscribers who have joined us and helped spread our co-ops mission in our community!
If you’re not a co-op member, we invite you to join us by investing in the Charles River Food Co-op today.
Volunteer
Opportunities
Interested in getting more involved? We’re looking for volunteers!
Join us at our board meetings, finance committee, and marketing committee meetings. You can find dates and joining information for all our meetings here:
https://charlesriverfood.coop/calendar
Currently, we are specifically looking for the following positions:
The Marketing Committee is looking for a Media Partnership Coordinator to join the marketing committee and help expand our local media presence. We’re looking for someone to help us manage connections to local publications, outlets, organizations, and more! If you are interested in this role, email us at marketing@charlesriverfood.coop
The Site Selection Committee is looking for two volunteers to assist in selecting our store site and our professional Project Manager Hiring process. We are looking for individuals with experience in commercial real estate, real estate law, construction, project management, retail management, and/or finance. If you are interested in this role, please email us at finance@charlesriverfood.coop
Member Spotlight
Reva Dolobowsky, Member #583
Where do you live?
I live in Waltham, not too far from Waltham Fields Community Farm, a place I love.
What do you do for work (and/or volunteering)?
I’m retired from market research consulting, where I got to hear people’s stories about all sorts of strange things, ranging from hammers and computers to pizza, lipstick, jewelry, pet food, pots and pans, and romance novels. I volunteer as a patient liaison at Boston Medical Center, where people from all over the world are treated for a rare blood disease, Amyloidosis. I also help immigrant women learn English, at Waltham Family School. And I volunteer at Healthy Waltham’s food pantry.
Why did you decide to become a member of the co-op?
I’m still heartsick at Russo’s closing, so I was glad to hear about efforts to create a co-op.
Where have you been buying your produce since Russo's closed?
Mostly Market Basket in Waltham. Sometimes the Indian Markets on Moody Street, especially for herbs and spices. In the summer, most of my produce comes from the Waltham farm, where I’ve been a CSA member for many years.
What is your favorite fruit or vegetable and how do you prepare it?
I especially love heirloom tomatoes, which I used to grow from seed. Now I buy transplants from Waltham Fields and Verrill Farm in Concord. I love them fresh with mozzarella and basil. I also make sauce (with onion, garlic, lime juice, and cilantro) which I freeze in muffin pans and then put into baggies to use all winter in pasta, stir fries, and soups.
Interested in sharing your story? Reach us at marketing@charlesriverfood.coop.
Message from the Board
We’ve been heads down this month in organizing mode, getting our plans in motion for an exciting Spring. Our board held an in-person meeting at the Watertown Free Public Library that covered how our committees are running, goal setting for 2024, and more. We’re planning on another in-person board meeting in the second quarter of the year - if you’re interested in attending make sure to watch our calendar.
While we’ve been heads down at work, our friends at the Red Fire Farm in Granby, MA suffered a devastating loss of their barn and store due to a fire. Many of our co-op’s members are fans of their produce and have subscribed to their CSA in the past. The board voted to donate $500 to their GoFundMe campaign to help them rebuild, and we’d like to encourage you to do the same in solidarity:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/red-fire-farm-store-barn-burned
Community News
CSA Sign-Ups Have Begun
Newton Community Farm’s 2024 Summer CSA Program!
Applications are now being accepted for Newton Community Farm's 2024 Summer Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Program! Eat fresh, locally-grown produce from June through October for a cost per share of $850 for weekly pickup or $460 for alternate weekly pickup. Our program traditionally saves our sharers 15-20% of the cost of the same produce bought at retail! All applicants must be a Friend of the Farm (FOF) to be considered. Go to https://newtoncommunityfarm.org/produce/csa/ for all the details. Thank you for your support!
Waltham Fields Community Farm CSA Registration is Open. WFCF is excited to have our full growing capacity back in 2024 - we are utilizing all 11 acres of land and have returned to CSA levels of 2022 and prior!
2024 CSAs
NEW! 20-Week 'Lil Share - SOLD OUT
For details on signing up, click CSA here.
Bob Moore, Founder of Bob’s Red Mill,
passed away at 94
Robert Gene Moore was born on Feb. 15, 1929, in Portland, the elder of two children of Ken and Doris Moore. He grew up in San Bernardino, Calif., outside Los Angeles, where his father, too, had a grain-adjacent job of sorts: He drove a Wonder Bread truck.
By his mid-40s, he was managing a J.C. Penney auto shop in Redding, Calif., when he wandered into a library and ran across a book called “John Goffe’s Mill,” by George Woodbury, which chronicled the author’s restoration of a run-down family flour mill in New Hampshire.
He found his first traditional stone-grinding flour millstones from a company in North Carolina. The equipment sat for a few years until Moore, his wife, and two of his three sons started their first mill business, Moore's Flour Mill in Redding, California, The Moores moved to Portland, where Bob attended a seminary to study the Bible for about six months. Bob found a commercial flour mill in Oregon City that was for sale, painted it red, and went back into the flour business.
Moore bought millstones from the closed Boyd mill near Dufur, Oregon. He acquired other stones from old mills in Indiana and Tennessee. The business that is now Bob's Red Mill began producing stone ground flours and cereals for the local area. In 1978, Moore sold direct through his store until he made a deal with the Fred Meyer grocery stores to carry his products. In 1988, annual sales to area health food stores and smaller grocers were approaching $3 million when the original mill was destroyed by an arsonist's fire. The millstones were spared, as grain from the second floor fell on them in the fire, which extinguished the flames around the mills, keeping the quartz stones from shattering in the heat and preserving the gears that turned them.
Despite the company’s explosive growth, Mr. Moore fended off numerous offers by food giants to buy Bob’s Red Mill. He opted instead for an employee stock ownership plan, instituted in 2010, on his 81st birthday; by April 2020, the plan had put 100 percent of the company in the hands of its more than 700 employees.
We hope our new store will carry products from this employee owned company.
Recipe of the Month
Roasted Asparagus with Dijon Lemon sauce
2 pounds asparagus spears, trimmed
4 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
Preparation
Preheat oven to 425°.
Combine asparagus, 2 teaspoons olive oil, salt, and garlic in a large bowl, tossing well to coat. Arrange asparagus mixture in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake at 425° for 12 minutes or until crisp-tender.
Combine remaining 2 teaspoons oil, rind, juice, mustard, and pepper in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk. Arrange asparagus on a platter; drizzle juice mixture over asparagus.
Sprinkle with parsley.
Do you have a recipe to share? Send it to us today for a chance to have it featured in our newsletter! marketing@charlesriverfood.coop
Plant-Forward Story of the Month
To get a start to this series, we found this free on-line movie. Eating Our Way To Extinction documents the most pressing environmental and health issues of our time and presents comprehensive science-based solutions, finding the most effective being a shift towards a plant-based lifestyle.
Co-op of the Month
This month we’re not featuring a single co-op, but an organization which includes more than 40 Food Co-ops and Start-ups across New England and New York State. The Neighboring Food Co-op Association represents businesses locally owned by more than 173,000 people like you.
Around 1985 there was a regional movement of co-op managers in the Connecticut River Valley in Massachusetts to network and combine their knowledge called the Cooperative Grocers Association of the Northeast (CGANE).There was still a desire for regional cooperation and a need to maintain the elements that NCG did not cover, like the pooling of information and tracking of the impact of the co-ops in the area. After a couple of years of organizing, the Neighboring Food Co-op Association was born. At its start,17 markets were part of the group. Over the course of several years, they began to articulate their collective vision and, in 2007, participants at a gathering in Middlebury approved the “Middlebury Manifesto,” a document expressing the desire to “further the ideals of democracy, cooperation, autonomy, and education as enshrined in the International Co-operative Principles.” Although the group originally dubbed themselves the Connecticut Valley Neighboring Co-ops, their network expanded beyond the bounds of the Connecticut River Valley, and thus the name evolved to the “Neighboring Food Co-op Association,” reflecting Wendell Berry’s assertion that “a viable community is made up of neighbors who cherish and protect what they have in common.”
Their 2022 Annual Food Co-op Impact survey revealed that the collective impact of their 44 Member Co-ops and Start–ups was stronger than ever. Just like a food, art, farmer, or any other co-op, NFCA exists to serve the needs of its members. Its work includes key cross-sector components that promote the cooperative economy as a whole. We are grateful for the help this organization gave the founders of CRFC to get us on the path to opening a store.
As always - thank you so much to all of you for your support and please spread the word by forwarding this email to a few friends.
In co-operation,
Board: Melissa, Tim, Nick, Christina, Allison, Joelle, Kathryn, Sonya, and Scott
Newsletter Team: Joelle, Simone, Scott, and Kathy
P.S. If you missed any of our previous newsletters, you can find them on our website.