Hungry for a better grocery store? That’s what we’re working towards - a neighborhood store that specializes in local, healthful, practical products. A store that you are part owner of, that listens to what you want, that allows you to take a role in shaping its future. A food cooperative does all this and more.
Hundreds of communities have had them for decades. In the past two years twenty one communities have opened theirs. Now’s the time for us to open ours.
We’ve been working on incorporation documents for weeks. We have a membership agreement that we and our attorney feel good about. Plans for our co-op are at a turning point. We can’t move forward unless you vote with your checkbook.
For the price of a few bags of groceries ($300), you vote for a better connection to the sources of your food. You support a local business. You join a fun group that’s making a difference in our community.
Our initial goal is to have 500 members by the end of the year. Yes, it’s ambitious. But if we pull this off, we’ll set ourselves up for starting construction next summer.
With our plans and legal documents in place, we now need your help.
Read more at our Frequently Asked Questions page and our business plan. (a 7.7M pdf file)
Then please download the membership agreement, fill it out and mail it in with your check!
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$300? Seriously? Cooportunity is only $200 and everything in Santa Monica is more expensive than it is in! Altadena! If anything our Coop should be less expensive than the one on the affluent West Side.
What is the incentive to cash in a Cooportunity membership, add an additional $100 and switch to Altadena?
I mean Pasadena. The Arroyo touches one edge of Altadena, but Pasadena straddles it for quite a distance. By changing the name from Altadena Coop to Arroyo Coop you definitely signaled a preference for Pasadena and its residents.
Thanks for your comments. It takes a lot of capital to start up a nice store. Co-opportunity has had 35 years to build theirs. It's not a matter of what area is more expensive. Rather it's about when we open the doors, how big the store will be and what features will it have.
We recognize that, these days, this can be a lot of money for some people. So you can start out at $30 and invest at least another $30 each year.
The name change came about because we had a number of volunteers from outside of Altadena. This is just one more example of how people who help can change the direction of our business. This is the first complaint we've had about it. Most people seem to like Arroyo Food Co-op.
The final location options will be heavily influenced by where most of the owners are. If you want to have the co-op in Altadena, then join and get your relatives, friends and neighbors to join also. Owners will get to vote on the location choice.
$300 is $300 no matter how you pay it.
The various payment plans that Cooportunity offers did not enter into my decision to join Cooportunity. Nor should it for the Arroyo Coop.
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my observations, Patrick.
Please don't get me wrong. This is your organization and if you want to call it "Arroyo Coop" or even "The Acme Moving Company" it's your business, not mine.
I was not complaining, just observing the shift in name signals your shift in focus from the small, independent and creative community of Altadena to the larger, more affluent and populous community of Pasadena that dominates this area (and the Arroyo). They already have a couple of Whole Foods, many Trader Joes, a Gelsons (where actual pictures of their local farm suppliers are posted) and multiple farmers' markets. More people, more money and therefore more influence, as you point out.
We Altadenans are well aware of that!
Just wanted to say that this is not (just) Patrick's business, but *our* business - that is, all the owners, which I think Patrick was also trying to express. Do I want the store in Altadena? Heck yeah! Am I trying to drum up support from my fellow Altadenans? You bet! But if the tide of support shifts from Altadena (where I live) to Pasadena because that is where the majority of the owners come from, and the store is ultimately built in Pasadena, I'll still be a supporter, and an owner.
Point is: if you really want the co-op here in Altadena, vote with your money (member = owner) and your actions (working to get it here, no matter what it is called)!
Maybe not Patrick's decision alone, but certainly that of the "founding team" that Patrick references repeatedly in his writing, not "all the owners".
For me location matters. I am not terribly dissatisfied with the shopping options in Pasadena, which I list above. I am very dissatisfied with the options in Altadena.
I will continue to check the web site every now and then to see how things are progressing, dropping the random comment here or there. At some point I will know, one way or the other, whether it will be worth joining or not.
The Arroyo coop's success will not hinge on this one Altadenan deciding to wait and see.