Thank you to our farmers and to everyone who attended the 2019 CSA Fair on April 27 at Seward Co-op Creamery Café.

Midwest Food Connection offered a seed planting activity for kids and kids at heart. Seward Co-op’s board members staffed the welcome table and talked about their work on behalf of owners.

Huge thank you to Sitka Salmon Shares for partnering with us on a giveback campaign and for donating the fish for our cafe specials. For each Community Supported Fishery share sold through the fair, Sitka donated $25 to Seward Co-op’s April SEED grant recipient, Sexual Violence Center in Minneapolis. With 12 shares sold, Sitka donated a total of $300!

Three farmer talks were livstreamed and featured Emily Hanson of Shared Ground Farmers’ Cooperative, Naima Dhore, a Somali-American farmer who grows certified organic vegetables, and Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin of Regenerative Agriculture Alliance. View the talks on Facebook now.

Thank you to the vendors and farmers who joined us. If you weren’t able to attend the CSA Fair, farmers may still have some shares available. Visit their websites to learn more!

Amador Hill Farm & Orchard (Women’s Environmental Institute)

Big River Farms

Blackbrook Farm

Burning River Farm

Buttermilk CSA & Folk School Retreat

EB Ranch LLC

Featherstone Farm

Growing Lots Urban Farm

Hmong American Farmers Association

Johnson Family Pastures

Little Big Sky Farm

Nelson Grass Farm

Northwoods Mushrooms(formerly Cherry Tree House Mushrooms)

Racing Heart Farm

Shared Ground Farmers’ Cooperative

Shepherd Moon Farm

Sitka Salmon Shares

St. Croix Valley

Tangletown Gardens

Treasured Haven Farm

Turnip Rock Farm

Untiedt’s Vegetable Farm

Seward Community Co-op encourages shoppers to donate to MAD DADS, our August SEED recipient, by rounding up at the register at co-op stores and Seward Co-op Creamery Cafe throughout the month.

Co-op staff have selected SEED recipients from a group of applicants each year since the program began in 2011. All funds donated at the register are given directly to the recipient organization at the end of each month, often totaling over $20,000 per month.

What is MAD DADS?

MAD DADS is an acronym: Men Against Destruction, Defending Against Drugs and Social Disorder.

MAD DADS combats social disorder, while restoring and stabilizing the family environment for children, adolescents and young adults, neighborhoods, communities and cities, with the task of addressing the issues of drugs, gangs and violence.

MAD DADS seeks to bring about positive change, and encourages, motivates and guides committed men and women in the struggle to save children, communities and themselves from the social ills that presently plague neighborhoods.

Activities are designed to promote and demonstrate positive images of fathers engaging and protecting community, youth and families.

History of MAD DADS

MAD DADS was founded in May 1989 by a group of concerned Omaha Nebraska African-American men and parents who were “fed up with gang violence and the unmolested flow of illegal drugs in their community.”

They presented themselves as positive role models and concerned loving parents who were a visible presence in communities.

The Minneapolis Chapter of MAD DADS was created in 1998. After its inception, the local chapter identified a consistent theme throughout neighborhoods and broadened membership to include individuals and families from all ethnic and racial backgrounds. In addition, MAD DADS has, at the request of law enforcement representative, expanded services to some suburban areas.

The program seeks to:

• Recruit, engage and activate adults in local communities.
• Serve as parental role models to children, adolescents and young adults.
• Guide, instruct and influence children, adolescents and young adults in a way that ensures the healthy development of each child’s emotional, spiritual and physical well-being
• To combat social disorder, while restoring and stabilizing the family environment for children, adolescents and young adults, neighborhoods, communities and cities, with the task of addressing the issues of drugs, gangs and violence.

To learn more, visit the local organization’s website: minneapolismaddads.org.

Seward Co-op’s decision to endorse the Minneapolis $15/hour minimum wage ordinance is rooted in our cooperative goal of creating equitability in the economy. Our Ends Statement says that we will sustain a healthy community with equitable economic relationships. We believe the current minimum wage of $9.50 is insufficient and is not equitable in our community.

Our goal is to pay our staff a living wage. A significant piece of the co-op’s pricing strategy is based on pay equity. Others businesses in the food industry do not have that goal. Seward Co-op established a living-wage model for its staff in 2006. We are committed to taking that model a step further.

Cheap food is promoted in the food system at the peril of food system workers. One of the key factors contributing to cheap food is the fact that food workers earn disproportionately low wages. As a co-op, we have been working for more than four decades to change that. We hope that this endorsement will provide a framework through which to discuss who is hurt by a cheap food system and the real cost of food.

We believe it is important to raise the minimum wage in order to address exploitation in the food industry. We believe that one way to do that is to pay everyone, from farmers to food chain workers, a fair wage.

Last September, the Seward Co-op Board of Directors asked General Manager Sean Doyle to determine the feasibility of increasing the starting wage at Seward Co-op to at least $15 per hour. This was in response to a proposal before the City of Minneapolis to raise the minimum wage over the course of the next few years until it reaches $15 an hour in 2023. Over the past several months, significant analysis and discussion has occurred among staff at the co-op. We’ve determined that a change to our starting wage over the next few years is viable.

We are working with 15 Now MN, a local organization advocating for an increase in the minimum wage. They are leading the Minneapolis campaign to increase the minimum wage over the next five years to $15 hour in 2023. Representatives from 15 Now MN will also be at the Seward Co-op CSA Fair on Saturday, April 22, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., in the Franklin store parking lot.

For more information on 15 Now and the $15/hr. minimum wage ordinance, as well as the co-op’s current wage scale and other questions, please read the FAQ.