Board of Directors’ Candidate Forum
October 8, 2019 @ 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Before casting your vote in this year’s board of directors election, please join us at a Candidate Forum!
Before casting your vote in this year’s board of directors election, please join us at a Candidate Forum!
Learn soap making from one of Seward Co-op’s most popular soap vendors! In this demonstration class, students will be shown soap making using the cold process method. Each student receives an instruction manual and takes home five bars of soap ($25 retail).
John Hanson, Seward Soap
$30/$25 co-op owners
Join Jesse Haas, functional nutritionist and founder of Wellness Minneapolis, to get some practical strategies for meal planning that will make feeding your family – big and small – a breeze. Participants will take home pantry staples lists, meal planning “hacks,” recipe formulas and sample meal plans.
Jesse Haas, CNS
$20/$15 co-op owners
You are what you eat. Learn about foods that impact your anxiety, depression, stress, and inflammation as well as principles for healthier eating using a lecture format. Take control of your health and be able to make food choices to help balance your mood. In this class, you will describe how food affects your mental health, understand how to eat foods to balance your mood, identify your own food rules, and gain understanding about how stress and inflammation affect your body.
Monica Peterson, LICSW
$25/20 co-op owners
Learn how to ferment with local fermentation expect the Pickle Witch!
This year on Oct. 14, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we will feature foods from the James Beard award-winning cookbook The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, written by Sean Sherman and Beth Dooley, on the hot bars at both the Franklin and Friendship stores. We will also be selling the cookbook for those who want to learn more about indigenous food. Leading up to Indigenous Peoples’ Day, co-op shoppers can round up for “Dream of Wild Health” in September. Seward Community Co-op takes to heart our Ends/mission statement of inclusive, socially responsible practices. We have “Everyone Welcome” above our entries, and we want our foods to reflect the diversity of cultures in our communities. Native foods have for too long been excluded from our legacy as Americans—when was the last time you saw a Native American restaurant?
If you heard Sean Sherman’s presentation at the Annual Meeting last October, you may remember how destruction of Native food ways is inextricably linked to the annihilation (or genocide) of the people here throughout colonization. Sean shared many stories—from George Washington’s directive to General Sullivan to destroy crops, seeds and villages of native peoples, to the slaughter of 99 percent of the bison population on the high plains to “open up” land for European-style agriculture. He also talked about the brutality of the “boarding schools” where native children were sent to learn to forget their own culture (language, religion, food, everything). There are many folks who were sent to these schools who are still living today.
If you were not at the Annual Meeting last year, this may be new information to you; it can be difficult to learn this history and how it informs the legacy of cultural domination alive today. We encourage you to watch Sean’s presentation available on Seward Co-op’s Facebook page, purchase and read the cook book, and look for other historically accurate sources.
Sean Sherman’s presentation reminded us that with genocide comes denial and cultural erasure; as a result, many indigenous people grew up with little ancestral knowledge of culture, rituals, and traditions. This painful history, which often is either romanticized or denied, contributes to why we don’t see many restaurants that serve traditional Native cuisine. It’s vital that we, as a community, remember the pain that millions suffered throughout our nation’s history. Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a day to remember indigenous ancestors, celebrate the survival and resilience of native people, and dispel the myth that Columbus discovered America.
Nourish 101 classes feature basic scratch-cooking techniques and recipes that feed a family of four for under $10. We’ll make a unique pizza featuring a spaghetti squash crust!
January: Mental Health Resources (Community Choice)
Mental Health Resources’ Seward Community Support Program (“CSP”) drop-in center on Minnehaha Avenue provides healthy snacks, meals, and health mentoring for 400 neighbors who are recovering from serious mental illness so they can thrive physically and mentally.
February: Cultural Wellness Center
The Dreamland Co-Café, a project of the Cultural Wellness Center, will create a blend of Culinary Heritage, self-love, and business incubation for African American food entrepreneurs in a cooperative and supportive environment that will allow us to reconnect, rediscover and reinvent the culinary traditions of our past.
Come sit around the “farm table” at the Seward Co-op Creamery Café and learn more about the Cultural Wellness Center 6-8 p.m. Feb. 19. Enjoy a meal designed by Creamery Café staff and inspired by this work, with ingredients sourced from Community Foods producers. Tickets are limited and may be purchased via Eventbrite.
March: Soup for You Café
Soup for You provides free, healthy, organic meals to all members of our community, Monday through Friday from 11 a.m.–1 p.m. We build community one bowl at a time.
April: Sexual Violence Center (Community Choice)
Sexual Violence Center, a nonprofit rape crisis center in Minneapolis, provides free support services to individuals impacted by sexual violence in Hennepin, Scott, and Carver counties. Funds from this program will help us build a gender-neutral bathroom in our office.
May: Appetite For Change
Appetite For Change advocates for food justice and economic development in North Minneapolis, with SEED funds supporting our Youth Training and Opportunity Program and our policy and advocacy work through Northside Fresh Coalition.
June: Urban Strategies, Inc./Green Garden Bakery (Community Choice)
Green Garden Bakery youth, supported by the nonprofit Urban Strategies, Inc., grow vegetables in their urban garden, bake them into healthy vegetable-based desserts (vegan and gluten-free), and market them using sustainable practices. We sell the desserts for “pay-what-you-want” and donate our
proceeds back into our community.
July: Isuroon
Isuroon is dedicated to building support for Somali women and girls social connectedness and self-sufficiency so that they can lead healthier, more productive lives in Minnesota and globally. SEED funding will be used in support of a culturally-specific food shelf that provides support for social connectedness, dignified service and healthy foods, including fresh fruits and vegetables, to any person in need.
August: Southside Services, Inc.
Southside Services supports adults with cognitive and developmental disabilities to become increasingly active, contributing members of their community.
September: Dream of Wild Health
Dream of Wild Health is a Native American-led nonprofit farm that provides leadership programs for Native youth. Dream of Wild Health grows indigenous seeds and foods and supports Native youth in advocating for a healthy community.
October: Community Support
Community groups are asking Minnesotans to join in helping to rebuild and show solidarity with the impacted businesses—Capitol Cafe, Lakes Pharmacy, Seward Market and Halal Meat, Barber and Braiding, and $5 Pizza and Tobacco Plus. One way the co-op can rally community support is through the SEED program. For the month of October all SEED funds will benefit our neighbors whose businesses were vandalized. Funds raised will go to CAIR-MN, who will distribute
the grant equitably among the affected businesses. Seward Co-op will match up to $1,000 in SEED donations.
November: Sabathani Community Center
Sabathani provides food, clothing and housing to 26,000 neighborhood residents each year in South Minneapolis. We feed the chronically poor, those on disability or chemical dependent individuals and families. Sabathani Community Center has been providing basic
needs services for nearly fifty years.
December: Open Arms of Minnesota (Community Choice)
Open Arms cooks and delivers free meals tailored to meet the nutritional needs of individuals living with life-threatening illnesses. They also serve the children and caretakers of those living with illness, free of charge.
Everyone is welcome to Seward Co-op’s first ever Community Dinner on Thursday, July 25, hosted by the Franklin and Friendship stores.
Join us 4-7 p.m. for a $4 wholesome, picnic-style dinner (vegan and made without gluten), live music and activities. Learn about the upcoming Seward Co-op Board of Directors election. Sample from Community Foods vendors and enter a raffle to win Seward Co-op gift cards. We’ll have drinks and desserts available for purchase, too.
The $4 Community Dinner will include three vegan and made-without-gluten salads. We’ll have special deals on drinks and desserts, too! The $4 meal includes:
•Tomato Cucumber Salad
•Kale Sweet Potato Salad
•Summer Vegetable and Chickpeas Salad with Pesto
We’ll have add-ons— like drinks and $1 cookies—in addition to hot bar items like meat.
Seward Co-op’s Board of Directors will be at the event to answer all of your board-related questions. The board is currently seeking candidates for the 2019 board election. Click here to learn more about the board election and how you can apply to be a candidate on our website. To apply, attendance is required at a board meeting this summer July 30 or Aug. 27.
Visit Seward Co-op’s Facebook page to reply to the event and follow us on social to stay in the loop. See you at the co-op!
Franklin store:
2823 E. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55406
Friendship store:
317 E. 38th St., Minneapolis, MN 55409
*while supplies last, seating may be limited