The Giving Season
John Tashiro, General Manager
Giving Thanks
Since last month’s update, the weather has gotten noticeably chillier and I experienced one of our busiest times of year with the lead up to my first Thanksgiving at the Co-op. It was wonderful to see how our staff’s extensive planning made things run so smoothly in the store. Hopefully all that planning made your shopping experience as pleasant as possible and you found what you needed for your holiday table.
While we reached new milestones in sales this November, most heartening were your compliments and positive comments to staff during this busy season. All of our employees enjoy engaging with you, our Members, customers, and vendors. The opportunity to celebrate these festive holidays and share our many tasty and local foods makes this an exciting season!
Giving Back to the Community through Growth
We are making good progress with our expansion into the South End and we’re on schedule to open in June 2017. Over the last few months, we have been diligent in our efforts around three key areas:
• Logistics. We completed the first phase of our environmental assessment work on the South End property. We’re currently working on the second phase, with the goal of completing this work during the winter.
• Design. We are currently in the midst of selecting a local architectural firm for the external development of the building. For the interior layout, we’ve been working with our Co-op consultants and our staff through several iterations of plans. At this point, we feel we have a very good draft and will soon start budgeting for store fixtures and equipment.
• Community Engagement. We have and continue to connect with various people and organizations in the South End to listen, understand and capture any thoughts, ideas and/or concerns. We have attended two NPA meetings and are working to meet with all NPAs by late winter. We’ll be scheduling larger community engagement sessions early next spring with the broader community where we’ll share plans and seek feedback and input.
We are incredibly grateful for the amazing support and encouragement from you as well as the South End community and City of Burlington. As we move forward, we’ll continue to promote the unique characteristics of the South End that have made it the vibrant community it is today.
Give back to the Community with a COTS Tree
The holiday excitement continues this month with the arrival of our COTS Trees! By the time you see this, we will have received over 600 trees from Moffatt’s Tree Farm in Craftsbury. All of the proceeds from this annual sale go to COTS (Community on Temporary Shelter), one of our long standing non-profit partners. In previous years, I understand the trees have gone very quickly and I suspect this year will be no different.
Books: Ideas for Giving
Lastly, with the upcoming holiday season, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my passion for books (especially considering the Co-op’s close proximity to one of my favorite places, the Fletcher Free Library)! Here are a few books I have enjoyed with my family and ones you might as well:
• For Toddlers: We All Went On Safari by Laurie Krebs
• For Children: The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson
• For Teens: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba
• For Adults: The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
As always, thank you all for your ongoing support as we continue to make every effort to listen and serve you, our Members and the community, in the very best way we can. Wishing you all a very Happy Holidays and wonderful New Year.