Warren King
Consultant / Adjunct Professor
In the face of climate change and a host of social and economic challenges, ensuring the resilience and well-being of our communities is more important than ever. I am motivated to be a candidate for re-election, so that I might contribute to determining what Seward Co-op’s role will be in creating a different future.
My experience as a college instructor in organizational sustainability and change management, will add a different point-of-view to board deliberations and decision making. My experience as a member and leader of nonprofit and for-profit boards will add to the board’s depth of financial understanding and community engagement. My perspectives as a person of color, will add to the solutions that Seward will consider to assist underserved and vulnerable populations.
For me, collaborative approaches to solving problems and creating opportunities is the through-line of the cooperative model. Collaboration, practiced with respect for other viewpoints and humility, is how the best solutions are achieved. My board leadership experiences have been built on sharing ideas and gaining insights from other people’s perspectives. Collaboration is cooperation.
In the next fifty years, the communities that Seward operates in will be faced with many challenges and opportunities. My hope is that all of us; owners, staff and leaders, will first consider community well-being in the decisions and actions that we take. My vision is for Seward Co-op to be a supportive and collaborative partner that meets the needs of the community. To me, that means that Seward Co-op will be more than a retail grocer, located in more communities and operating more diverse and larger enterprises than it does today.
Seward’s Ends Statement says that we will “sustain a healthy community”. The Statement recognizes that to be healthy, a community needs equitable economic relations, positive environmental outcomes and socially responsible practices. My contribution to the Ends Statement includes spending more of my family’s food dollars at the Co-op, purchasing more from our Community Foods partners and personally supporting the events and programs of SEED program recipients. I will intentionally “strengthen and support”; doing my part to sustain a healthy community.