Investment Campaign

Durham Central Market is launching our Community Investment Campaign! $1.5 million dollars in loans and equity shares are necessary for us to build Durham Central Market. Just as Weaver Street counted on its owners to support its ventures, we're counting on you!

We on the Investment Campaign Committee are sure there are at least 300 of our 900 owners who are able and willing to make an investment to help us reach the goal. That would mean an average investment of $5,000. To ensure our campaign is accessible to all, we've left the minimum investment at $1,000, and for those who can offer more than $50,000, please talk with us directly.

This week each owner will receive a pledge card in the mail, along with details on investment choices. Shortly, a DCM volunteer will call you to guide you through the investment process, answer any questions you may have, and take your pledge directly. Following your pledge, we will arrange a time to meet in person- either at home, or in our office- and help you with the investment paperwork.

As owners, it is very important for all of us who can to be involved in the investment campaign. And what better way to invest than to invest locally in a neighborhood grocery store.

If you are not yet an owner, please become one by purchasing your share at www.durhamcentralmarket.org.

$1.5 million dollars is a portion of the $4.15 million total capital needed. Only by raising these funds can we actualize the dream.

Thank you!

Investment Campaign Committee
Durham Central Market

Durham Central Market Love Your Market Pep Rally!!!

Sunday, February 13, 2011 6:00-8:00 PM
The Trotter Building | 410 West Geer Street, Durham, NC

The time has come to take the next BIG step for DCM: the owner investment campaign! Come and gather with other owners and investors to enjoy an evening of foods, fun and information.

Emcee: WUNC's Frank Stasio, host of The State of Things
Guest Speaker: Stuart Reid, Food Co-op Initiative Executive Director
Guest Speaker: Robin Arcus, DCM Board Member
Durham Cinematheque with fun foody film clips

Local Chefs and Restaurateurs:

Four Square, Rue Cler, Piedmont, Mez, Toast, Watts Grocery, Fullsteam, Wine Authority, The Portable Gourmet Baking Company,
Six Plates, Farm Hand Foods, Revolution, and more...
with a wonderful array of their delectable edibles to sample

DCM Board of Directors, Project Manager and Volunteers
ready to answer your questions about the investment campaign and the market's next stages
and YOU!!

Modern Day Cooperatives

A Powerful Support System for Helping Sustain Local Economies and Community Needs

By Claudia Green

In an attempt to get a clearer definition of modern day food cooperatives I set out to glean from Stuart Reid's words what this means not only for our community but for our country in this time of economic struggle. Stuart Reid works with the Food Co-op Initiative, a national operation that supports Food Co-ops and their needs from helping them to get started to helping them stay afloat through finding resources and other means. Corporations in the food industry have competed against the food co-ops in this country for many years. There is a new set of needs, however, that communities are insisting on that co-ops can answer at a rate of a dozen or more new ones annually on a national scale not only in small towns, where there are no grocery stores, but also within larger cities to help build local economies and to support local farmers, artisans and entrepreneurs.

(please allow for my paraphrasing below..)

Me: Please define modern day food cooperatives.

Stuart: Cooperatives mean being in community. Each community decides what that means for them. For some it means getting local food, good food, and for other communities it means bringing in food other than junk food to their neighborhoods. Co-ops can be anything. There is a new look at what cooperatives can be for modern day communities.

Me: There is a concern that food cooperatives that sell local produce could hurt the local farms business, especially business at Farmers' Markets. What do you think?

Stuart: There is no negative impact! On the contrary, it is a win-win situation!

Me: In an attempt to assist in supporting local economies co-ops are trying to sell entirely from local contributors. Is this realistic?

Stuart: For the needs of each community this support is defined through the workings of the co-ops themselves. It is very hard to sell entirely from local contributors but there are some co-ops in this country that are selling between 30-40% of their goods from local contributors.

Me: Are co-ops, by the very nature of the term, financially supportive of each other? There are some co-ops in neighboring communities that pull in millions while in other parts of that same community co-ops are failing.

Stuart: Each co-op needs to take care of their own needs first. Most will provide training and advice, to assist other co-ops. There are also development support organizations that might assist: Co-op Development Centers, USDA Rural Co-op Development but there is no national centralized operation set up to fund co-ops getting started. It is more on a regional scale. At the CCMA National Food Cooperatives Conference this has been talked about for years. There will be hopefully in the next couple of years an establishment of funds for co-op development.

There are ~300 active retail co-ops in this country. The first successful retail co-op is usually considered the Rochdale Pioneers, in England. Buying clubs actually started after food co-ops where there were no retail stores.

Me: Are there more co-ops starting up these days?

Stuart: In the last five years there is a surge of interest!

Me: Why the surge?

Stuart: It has to do with: 1) the economy and looking for options, 2) co-ops are meeting the need for better food, economic development, sustainable production and business practices, and community-building, 3) inner city/rural communities are creating co-ops where there is no viable grocery store.

As we move forward in our own Durham town, may we all keep in mind what it is our community is wanting and needing where the Durham Central Market can be of service!!

Third Friday Durham

LOCAL ART by Poster Artist, Jamie B. Wolcott!

2/18/2011 6pm-9pm @ 538 Foster Street

Durham Central Market is happy to be coming back to Third Friday a month earlier than we'd announced in our November newsletter! Jamie B. Wolcott has been a poster artist for nearly 20 years. Starting with a theater troupe designing posters, shirts, playbills in the Chapel Hill area. After three years of making posters, t-shirts, and other pictorial items, she greatly desired to go to art school to learn what life could not teach.

Attending the School of Visual Arts for 4 years in New York City, she graduated with honors in illustration. Using a rare technique in watercolor that mimics glazing in oil paints, her pictures are luminescent and vibrant.

Musicians and performers are who she mainly creates posters for. Some of her clients include Emmylou Harris, John Prine, The Melvins, and Curtis Eller's American Circus, among others.

She currently resides in Durham, with her banjo playing husband Curtis and her daughter Daisy, and continues to pursue a career as a poster artist.

www.DurhamCentralMarket.org