Thank you for exercising your member right to vote in the Olympia Food Co-op 2023 Elections. By casting your vote, you’ll be participating in over 40 years of tradition. By selecting members of our community to serve the Co-op on your behalf, you’ll drive our mission and values.
Ballots accepted from 9 a.m. October 15th until 9:00 p.m. on November 15th. Once you submit your ballot, you will not be able to edit your responses. Your name and either address or email are required in order to verify your membership. Your ballot will not be considered valid without this identifying information.
For help contact: memberrelations@olympiafood.coop
Board Candidates
Linda Myers
- Why do you want to join the Co-op Board of Directors?
I have served on the Board of Directors for the past 3 years and would like to continue this service. Having served on many Board committees I know there is much to be accomplished and I continue to have the energy and desire to devote time to this wonderful community asset.
2. What skills and abilities would you bring to the Board?
I have served on a variety of community organizations during my adult life and have a lot of experience working with diverse groups of people. I like to work on projects from inception to completion, which takes determination and patience. I do what I say I’m going to do and am not put off by bumps in the road. My 25 years as business administrator at a small private school in New Jersey prior to moving to Olympia gives me a broad foundation of experience from working on budgets (and spreadsheets & numbers), overseeing facilities and meeting the needs of constituents.
3. What vision do you have for the Co-op?
My vision for our Co-op is for it to be the best and most welcoming whole foods grocery market in the Pacific Northwest! We have work to do on that vision. Movement towards an expansion is definitely on my front burner. We’ve talked about it for years, now is the time for some action. Another front burner item is implementing Policy Governance to give our Board of Directors a framework with which to accomplish its work of overseeing the business of our Co-op.
4. What else would you like to share?
I have been a working member cashier at the Eastside store for 6 years and consider that the most rewarding part of my service to our Co-op. I love engaging with our members and talking to new folks about how joining the Co-op benefits individuals and our community at large.
Andie Giron
- Why do you want to join the Co-op Board of Directors?
I want to join the Co-Op Board of Directors because I am passionate about taking on leadership roles that create change that I would like to see in the world. In addition, I am naturally drawn to representing ideas or beliefs that may not be considered in traditional settings or groups. I am relatively young, relatively poor and feel that I represent an identity that is not often seen on Boards of Directors. I am excited to share my unique perspective, put ideas into action, and learn more about the cooperative business structure that the Co-Op practices. Food is not only one of my deepest scientific interests, but something that has altered my life. I have cultivated important relationships through food, and I’ve created and healed disease through food. To me, there is no life without food.
2. What skills and abilities would you bring to the Board? I have a variety of skills and abilities that I am excited to potentially share with the Co-Op Board. As a caregiver for children under five, it is my job to understand where these very young people are at, in terms of physical and cognitive development, what tools they have or do not have from their families and community, and meet them with patience, compassion and enthusiastic understanding. I find that caregiving work easily translates to most work involving people. I am a confident communicator, I bring people in the community together with ease and joy, and I love to solve problems of all kinds with a special interest in ethical and/or interpersonal issues. Finally, I have been thoroughly trained via Anti-Racist workshops and education exeriences. Anti-Racism is integral to all work I do.
3. What vision do you have for the Co-op? The vision I have for the Co-Op is to expand the impact we have within the Olympia community through education. I am both a dreamer and a realist – I have high visions and hopes but also remain grounded in what is possible for the tools/capacities both people, and the collective community have. I dream of connecting closer with local school districts to create programming around nutrition, food preparation, and how food intersects with climate, racism and socioeconomic status. I also envision similar programming that is available for folks of all walks of life. I am deeply curious how compassionate, trauma and privilege informed, community education could change both the currently dire public health system as well as health outcomes for folks that struggle with inflammation related disease. I see the Olympia Food Co-Op providing a sturdy bridge between existing groups in town to deepen the meaning of food in our community.
4. What else would you like to share? All that I have to add is my immense gratitude for the Olympia Food Co-Op. I grew up in an area where this type of community care was not modelled for me. I feel like an excited and supported child everytime I go to the Co-Op. I know that folks there share many values, are also excited about food, and ultimately, want to exist together on Earth in a fair and ethical way.
Kate Cox
- Why do you want to join the Co-op Board of Directors?
I want to join the board because I believe in the cooperative business model as being vitally important to keeping local economies thriving. I also love the Olympia co-op and want to see it continue to serve our community well in the future
2. What skills and abilities would you bring to the Board? I want to join the board because I believe in the cooperative business model as being vitally important to keeping local economies thriving. I also love the Olympia co-op and want to see it continue to serve our community well in the future.
3. What vision do you have for the Co-op?
My vision for the Olympia Co-op is a business that provides a superior place to work, meets the needs of its members and supports the local community, especially farmers and producers. Also, I’d like to see the co-op be able to grow and pivot to meet the changing needs of our community.
4. What else would you like to share? I would like to help the board move from being focused on day-to-day operations to being focused on vision, ends and long-range planning.
Jim Hutcheon
- Why do you want to join the Co-op Board of Directors? I previously served five years on the Board of Directors. During my time on the Board I served on several committees and I helped to organize what I feel is an important new committee, the Capital Campaign Committee. During the initial months of COVID in 2020, I worked the door at the Eastside Co-op. I believe that I contributed constructively to the work of the Board and I would like the opportunity to do that again.
2. What skills and abilities would you bring to the Board?
I am organized, analytical, and a good communicator. I have a lot of practical experience at the Co-op and have a good sense of the unique ways that things proceed at the Co-op. In addition to my work as a biology professor, I have organized field work in foreign countries. In addition to basic administrative skills, I have worked with funders, organized volunteers, interacted with local stakeholders, organized budgets, and supplied field staff with food and resources.
3. What vision do you have for the Co-op?
I am particularly interested in the idea of expansion and practical ways that this can come about. I helped to start the Capital Campaign Committee of the Board and I have been serving as an at-large member of that committee during my time off of the Board. I feel that the real impediment to expansion is the financing of it and an active capital campaign is an important step in actually making expansion happen.
4. What else would you like to share? I have been a vegetarian for 35 years and involved with food co-ops nearly all my adult life. I have a long-standing commitment to the health of the individual, the community, and the planet. I believe strongly in the values set forth in the Olympia Food Co-op’s mission statement. Our food and our diet makes up a significant portion of most people’s monthly expenses and as such, I believe we all have a fundamental right to good and healthy food choices
Bernie Meyer
For your consideration, in view of the attached ‘ALARM’ statement and my limited availability does the Food Coop want me to be on the Board? I would push the Coop to study George Monbiot’s book, REGENESIS, Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet. And then, apply it to educating constituency with changes in food offerings accordingly. My priorities are abolishing nuclear weapons and reversing human created climate disruption.
Bernie Meyer
ALARM ALARM ALARM September 5, 1:30 AM
Gandhi said: “My India is the India of 700,000 villages!”
Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 .
I am reading George Monbiot’s new book, REGENESIS, Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet. Its about ‘FARMING IS THE WORLD’S GREATEST CAUSE of environmental destruction.”
I just returned from a trip on Amtrak’s “Empire Builder” train from Seattle to Cleveland for my friend’s memorial. ?I watched the industrial farms in Montana, North Dakota, Wisconsin’s fields without ends. My son in May and June served fire fighters in New Mexico destroying places like Las Vegas NM. At this September moment California towns are burning with the forests during a record temperature heat dome. Jackson Mississippi’s water is unusable due to flooding and neglect from racism against blacks. The southwest US Colorado river water is drying up.
The whole West is burning: California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho…
Last Year I wrote this short song:
HEAT DOME ATMOSPHERIC RIVER
HEAT DOME ATMOSPHERIC RIVER
HEAT DOME ATMOSPHERIC RIVER
FROM ALL SIDES
FROM ALL SIDES
ONE AFTER THE OTHER
1,2,3,4
HERE WE GO
WHERE TO?
ANYWHERE
NO WHERE
HEAT DOME ATMOSPHERIC RIVER
HEAT DOME ATMOSPHERIC RIVER
HEAT DOME ATMOSPHERIC RIV..err…
Since 1974 I have been resisting nuclear weapons at Sub Base Bangor here in Washington State, arrested with others many times. Russia and the US “risk” nuclear war in Ukraine.
This is my message. Gandhi would speak better…and did.
This is all I can say now.
Bernie
“I have just returned from Pakistan, where I looked through a window into the future,” Gutierrez said. “A future of permanent and ubiquitous climate chaos on an unimaginable scale: devastating loss of life, enormous human suffering, and massive damage to infrastructure and livelihoods. … What is happening in Pakistan demonstrated the sheer inadequacy of the global response to the climate crisis, and the betrayal and injustice at the heart of it.”
Antonio Gutierrez UN Secretary-General