Hello, community members!

Seward Co-op is a community-owned, full-service grocery store with two locations in South Minneapolis. Our mission is to sustain a healthy community. We have been working on new store signage designed to help shoppers find the products and services they’re looking for in our stores. The aim of the project is to implement signage that relies less heavily on English and is intuitive regardless of language spoken. As part of this process, we want to host a series of focus groups with community members to gather feedback on our work. The co-op has set up six session with a limited number of spots per session. At least one of these sessions will be facilitated in Amharic, Hmong, Oromo, Spanish, Somali and English.

We are looking for individuals who reflect the diversity of the neighborhoods we serve. We welcome anyone – especially those who speak Amharic, Hmong, Oromo, Somali, and/or Spanish. Each focus group will take about 1 hour.

We will provide a ***$50 Seward Co-op gift card*** for each individual who participates.

Would you be willing to forward this or recommend someone to us? You are also welcome to participate yourself. Below, are the dates we have available. Sign-ups are available for the sessions linked below.

• Session 1 (facilitated in English): 4/27 6 – 7 p.m.

• Session 2 (facilitated in Spanish): 4/28, 6 – 7 p.m.

• Session 3 (facilitated in Hmong): 4/29, 6 – 7 p.m.

• Session 4 (facilitated in Amharic): 5/13, 6 – 7 p.m.

• Session 5 (facilitated in Somali): 5/17, 6 – 7 p.m.

• Session 6 (facilitated in Oromo): 5/18, 6 – 7 p.m.

*Focus groups facilitated in Amharic, Oromo and Somali are scheduled to take place following Ramadan. Sign-ups will be available soon.

If you or someone you know are interested and able to participate, please:

a.) sign-up for the session in the language in which you are most comfortable and/or b.) forward this to someone who might be interested!

Thank you so much for considering!

Join Zachary Paige, organic plant breeder who resides in Northern MN for a two-part series about seed saving basics. Zachary is the proprietor of North Circle Seeds, a certified organic vegetable seed company committed to creating an ecologically diverse, equitable, and inclusive food system. NCS does this through an intentional relationship with our seeds and our circle of Midwestern growers, who produce regionally adapted seed using chemical-free, sustainable and organic practices.

Zachary will be discussing the basic considerations when saving seed from your farm or garden including germination testing, plant spacing, seed quality and which species might cross pollinate with other seeds.

Please RSVP in advance via the Eventbrite link below. You will receive an email from Eventbrite that contains a Zoom link to join the class in advance of the class date.