daily Co-op’s board election 2020

Why would you like to serve on the Daily Groceries Co-op Board? 

The Daily Co-op is an institution with a history of sourcing healthy groceries and creating community. I want to participate more intimately in this organization with the hope of growing myself as a community organizer, learning about the food industry, and crucially, expanding the services of Daily Co-op to benefit more ACC citizens. Working consecutively at the University Math Department, UGA’s Bolton Dining Hall and The Grit, I learned about the ongoing financial inequities that have never been successfully solved from the top down. Although these circumstances are not unique to Athens, I believe that we at the Co-op are uniquely equipped to listen to the needs of each community in Athens and mobilize local resources to meet their needs. 

How can you and your life experiences bring value to the Daily Groceries Co-op board? 

In college, I studied chemistry and mathematics, learning two different ways to think critically. Outside of the classroom, I worked in food service and studied and danced the historically Black dance Lindy Hop. These experiences grounded me with social awareness of the world outside of my technical studies. In my current occupation as a consulting adhesive chemist, I have found as much success coming from my intentional empathy as from my chemical knowledge. At RS Industrial, I regularly talk with the founding chemist to learn from his business acumen with the hopes of applying it toward a collective endeavor, such as the Daily. I will continue to lean on his mentorship for guidance if I am elected to serve on the Board. The Daily must continue to be financially secure if we want to succeed in an ambitious outreach.

Describe your experiences working collaboratively in a group setting. 

In 2017, I joined the Classic City Swing Board of Directors. This local organization was founded in 2011, is run by roughly seven staff and four board members, and hosts a Lindy Hop workshop for 200 out-of-town dancers every September. In this organization, the board sets the vision for the event, delegates responsibilities to individual staff members, and finalizes large decisions. Between January and September, we held planning meetings every other week where the staff would report on their goals, accomplishments, and needs. The whole staff was encouraged to voice their opinions during full-body meetings, and the board acted as trustees, voting on decisions in secondary meetings. This structure boosted the voice of the working staff members while also allowing the wisdom of the experienced board members to guide the large decisions, much like the staggered election cycle of the Daily board. During the following year of CCS, I performed the roles of Director, Treasurer, and Logistics Coordinator. In these roles, I devised a new budget structure, income projections, and a pricing scheme for our tickets, and planned the event and staff schedules. We also streamlined our communication by using Slack and updating rules regarding meeting minutes. My involvement with Classic City Swing trained me both to support and to lead a team.   

The Daily Groceries Co-op Board does not deal with operational matters. It does deal with overall policies that identify and guide the mission of the organization. How do you see the board maintaining and expanding on the broader vision for the Co-op? 

Every employee that I know says that the Daily is a more welcoming place to work and shop than any other job they’ve held. I hope to continue the success of the previous and current board in this area, supporting a healthy workforce and paying them a living wage. Additionally, I hope to continue ongoing board initiatives to support local farmers and nurture the community of neighbors who shop at Daily. I think that we could begin an initiative where owner-members and casual shoppers advocate for individual people who need mutual aid, in the form of food or cash. It would be fantastic to offer opportunities for direct wealth transfers from loyal wealthy clients to the larger Athens community.

How can Board members better represent the opinions of the membership and the larger Athens community? 

Realistically, the Board can only represent the larger Athens community (e.g., Black, Latinx, queer, immigrant, working class, disabled, etc.) if it contains such people chosen by their representative communities.