Community's support will make cooperative grow

I want to personally thank the community for its overwhelming support of our recent Six Rivers Market’s kick-off potluck and fundraiser at Community Hall. The turnout far surpassed our highest expectations. It was amazing to see the enthusiasm and excitement for a budding community organization that hopes to pull the community together, to localize and secure our food supply while bolstering existing and creating new jobs. It was evident that there is a palpable excitement in our community to pull together and create real change in the way we eat, the way we live, and the way we survive as a local economy. Six Rivers Market cooperative is just one way to do that.

To everyone who came, thank you for your patience and help as together we added table after table to make room for all who wanted to share your great dishes. Thank you, as well, for your patience as Six Rivers Market manager Vicki Reich and I did our best to keep up with all who had questions and wanted to join the cooperative. We were clearly unprepared for the amazing turnout, but each of you showed patience and stepped in to make it a successful event.

A big thank you to all who donated such wonderful items for our silent auction. Six Rivers Market is off to an amazing start, thanks to all who showed their marvelous and encouraging support. Your early support will enable Vicki Reich, the cooperative manager, to continue to seek out additional sources of local food, the key to the cooperative’s success.

Thank you to Vicki Reich, who has so willingly volunteered her time to gather the solid group of producers that Six Rivers has today and who is dedicated to seek out more. Thank you to our terrific producers, whether you are a part of Six Rivers Market cooperative or not — yours is a difficult but such an important role. Thank you to my husband Clinton Summers, who I roped into this idea in the first place to spend endless late nights developing the Six Rivers Market Web site. And a huge thank you to my five wonderful kids, Taylor, Addy, Dax, Mia and Kenna, who sacrificed much as their mom dived into a project that was way over her head.

In a time where we continually see the signs of a declining world economy, it was clear that Sunday evening that we have a group of committed residents who will join together to invest in our local economy and help secure a better community for ourselves, our families, and generations to come. It was truly a positive sight to see. Six Rivers Market is just a start — now it is in the hands of the community to help it evolve and provide the security we so need in these times.

Thank you, again, to all who have embraced the idea of a community cooperative and who have the vision to see it evolve.

MEADOW SUMMERS

Sandpoint