2020 Year-End Report
Like many of you, we started the year with hope and promise and adopted the mantra 2020: the year of perfect vision. We held our open board meeting in February on a very warm, and sunny Saturday morning. We concluded the meeting feeling energized and ready to dig our heels in, committed to advancing us closer to store opening.
Late February came, and four of our board members were off to a cold and snowy Madison, Wisconsin to connect with our start up food co-op peers from across the country, we immersed ourselves into deep learning as to where we were as a start up food cooperative, and where we were aiming to go. In a two day period, we collectively absorbed about 30 hours of education and information. We left amped and inspired!
It was upon our return from the Up & Coming conference when our perfect vision began to get a little fuzzy. Much like the rest of the world, we paused in an attempt to gain a better understanding of what a pandemic means and what does it mean to be a start up food co-op during a pandemic. We cultivated partnerships, we grew our number of member-owners (shareholders), and we continued to stress the importance of community ownership. Here’s a review of our 2020 highlights.
We’re GROWING! In 2020, we gained over 100 NEW member-owners (130 to be exact), our biggest growth year to date!
We participated in the inaugural SEE-LA Business Accelerator Program - learning first hand what it will take to build a successful grocery co-op.
We expanded our marketplace and proudly partnered with Community Services Unlimited Village Marketplace to provide fresh produce to our member-owners.
We launched a fresh, new website.
We expanded our committees to include the expertise of our member-owners and increasing our capacity to get more work done.
We launched the Let’s Talk Co-op series on Instagram Live to educate and engage folks about food cooperatives. Follow us on Instagram for more.
We held a dynamic Annual Meeting, highlighting our accomplishments over the year and continuing to build community. Check out the video!
We developed the first digital one-pager to help you, help us spread the word about our efforts. Download Here.
We launched the nonprofit F.E.ED ( Food, education, economic development) SoLA to support the efforts of the cooperative.
We were able to accomplish so much in a year of tremendous loss, and uncertainty and we thank each and everyone of you for your continued support of our efforts. So, what’s next?
In 2021, we aim to launch our capital campaign, this will be the money we use to actually open the store, identify a site, provide more educational workshops and continue to grow our member-owners, illustrating that SoLA Food Co-op is for the community, by the community. We can’t wait to engage deeper with you all in 2021.
In SoLAdarity,
Mikaela Randolph
Mikaela currently serves as the Board President of SoLA Food Co-op and is the owner and principal consultant of Randolph Consulting Group. She is mother to her 12 year old daughter and is a life-time resident of South L.A.
