 Hi, I'm Cherie with City Market. Welcome to our 50th anniversary celebration. We're here today with a number of our food vendors, music, art, and community. Hi, I'm Todd. I work for City Market too, and yeah, we're having a great time here. We got a beautiful day here down on the waterfront. We're celebrating our members and our community 50 years of history. We started in 1973 just as a buying club with members in town, wanting to change the way that we eat and the way that we do business, and we just have a remarkable history here. Just excited about it. Yeah, 50 years of food with purpose. I'm Peter Clavel. I've been a long time member of the co-op, and I want to wish them a happiest of 50th anniversaries. They've a great asset to this community, and I was mayor when they came into downtown, and at a time when we were a grocery desert with no place to shop downtown. The co-op stepped up, and City Market was the result of it, and I think they've served this community extremely well, and I think the co-op, its leadership, John and the entire team, the members and the board for their commitment to serve this community. Congratulations and happy anniversary. Hi there, my name is John Tashuro, General Manager at City Market at New River Co-op, and so here I am at our 50th anniversary celebration. You know, really hard to believe that it's been 50 years since we were first incorporated back in 1973 on September the 5th. Obviously the wonderful support of our members, our community, and our amazing staff and our board have really come to this, just an amazing moment, and so we wanted to definitely put on a big party and a real show of gratitude to our community to really thank them for all their support throughout the last 50 years. I'm really looking forward to doing that for many, many years to come. So just having a great time with food, fun, family and friends, and something that we hope that everyone will enjoy. So anyway, thanks so much and hope you enjoy the party. So congratulations to City Market, Onion River Co-op for 50 years. It's a little hard to believe it's been 50. I've been a member of City Market, Onion River Co-op since about 1972, when it was the beginning of the pre-order system, where we had up to 100 different pre-order groups that would gather its money and orders and have mass distributions of big bulk foods that in fact weren't available in Burlington at the time. And then we, Susan and I met there and as we developed our family, we left and the storefront soon opened a few years after that and away City Market went. So happy 50 years. Do you want to say something about the pre-paid people? Sure, go ahead. Pre-paid? The people that organized those. So in terms of who it is. So there was a group of people we call themselves a collective. I can remember a few people, John Mint in particular, was very instrumental in the Veggie Co-op and we would do pre-ordered vegetables every other week and have a distribution and again it was all through buying groups. Peter Huber started the Fish Co-op and it would be frozen fish from, most of this was from Boston. I remember the first time we actually brought yogurt and tofu back from Boston which was a big hit at the time. Hundreds and hundreds of quarts of yogurt and tens of buckets of tofu from Chinatown. But, you know, it's been a long time ago now so some of these things people may not understand as the origins of how the Co-op really started. I can't think about the beginning of the Co-op without mentioning Susan Meacham. She along with Larry were the first two paid employees of the Co-op back in the early 70's. Susan was an inspiration for me. She was a mother with young children. She drove grain trucks into New York City to pick up loads to bring back for the pre-order groups. And she was just a real model for me and for many other women at the time of having a family, working on something that politically was valid and important to you. And along with, just to mention a few other people that were involved in the beginning, Cheryl... Bochamp Nobs. Bochamp Nobs worked on a bread and grains project with Vermont Farmers with NOFA. Betsy Stevenson was another person that was there early on. When I started working at the Co-op in the mid 70's I was working with a project that was bringing foods to elderly living centers where they could have a Co-op experience and bring in vegetables for them. So just working as a collective at the time was not a well-paying job but it was exciting and felt important and it was an incredible group of people to be working with. So let's also remember Gene Bergman, who's a well-known name around town. He started, he worked with a group of low-income women and started the grocery Co-op. People acting for change together. It was on North Street, they had a small storefront and they would buy groceries, they would buy canned goods from Co-op label and Hanover. It would be really good to remember Gene and his efforts in that regard. Oh and of course, we have to remember Lars. Lars Larsson who built the frame timber warehouse that we built at 77 Archibald Street. He harvested the trees and he made the lumber from his mill and he constructed it and I'm not sure he ever actually got paid and he should actually be Co-op member number one for sure. Good question, good point. And we were part of the pre-order Co-op first with grains and then with vegetables but then after we had both left there was a transition to the store on Archibald Center and Michelle Lefkowitz was one of the key people involved with that. There was also the early Burlington Co-op was connected with the New England Co-ops and other Co-ops in Vermont so there was a lot of support and energy amongst the community then. And the early members of the Co-op were coming from all sorts of walks of life in Burlington buying groups in the New North End, buying groups among the students. It was a very diverse group of people that were there for finding healthy foods buying cooperatively many different motivations but it all came together in a really exciting way. So happy birthday Onion River Co-op. My name is Christina Sweet and I'm currently the Board President of City Market Onion River Co-op. I've been a member of the Co-op since 2012 but a shopper for far longer and I joined the Board of Directors in January of 2020. And today I'm so excited to be celebrating the Co-op's 50th anniversary with all of these folks, members and members of our community here in the south end of Burlington. The Co-op is such an important community resource in addition to being an excellent grocery store. We are just celebrated our 20th anniversary as a hybrid Co-op selling both natural and conventional foods and downtown Burlington and our fifth year anniversary of the south end store. So we're now a two store Co-op and what I love about being part of the Co-op is not just the fact that I can shop for my groceries and get all of the amazing local products that I would like to have in my kitchen but I also know that I'm giving back to the community. The Co-op gives back to the community through sponsorships, donations, our seedling grant programs and through Rally for Change and this month has been really really important. We've rallied for change at the register for flood relief to support organizations that are helping farmers recover from the flooding and severe weather events in July. So it's been a really important resource to so many folks throughout Vermont and I'm so excited to be a part of the Co-op's next 50 years. Hi, it's Linda Eyre. I've been a member of the Co-op since 1971 which is when I remember Lars Larson coming through the dorm and saying there's a Co-op starting, you need to buy something. I think we bought peanuts because we didn't know what else to buy. I think lots of us have many stores of soybeans from back in the day but the story I wanted to tell was from my ordering group in Heinsberg this woman really really really wanted dried pineapples so she had to make a case for herself. There was a minimum order, I think of five pounds for pineapple and she said you could use it for ring toss or for stacking or for decorating. She got her five pound minimum. Thank you to the Co-op and all the people who have made it what it is. So my name is Michael Monti. I am a citizen of Burlington. I live in the South End. I've lived in the South End for a handful of decades. I was an early Co-op member when we first moved here in 1976 and I remember putting together bags of food and boxes to deliver to little groups of folks who would then divide that up again. So early early adopter of the Co-op movement always felt that the Co-op was the right thing to do. Over time then just another member but then in 19, what was it, in 2000 I think it was we began to sort of think about well should there be a store from downtown Burlington and I went back to work at the Community and Economic Development Office and part motivated to do a store at City Market or any store actually for the city center of Burlington which had no downtown market. Went through a process and chose City Market and it really was a transition for the Co-op. The Co-op had to go from you know kale and fancy organic foods to serving everyone. Meats and fish and a range of different kinds of foods that was really important to many of us in the city that City Market made that change. That was an important change and that change meant that the store was going to be open to more people than just folks who believed in organic foods. Now the time has transitioned and many people believe in organic foods and it's become more mainstream but the important part is that the store had to open up and be as many things to as many people as possible and to really serve so many people. I think if you go to the store now downtown you'll see that. You will see lots of different folks eating, drinking, getting food at the cafe and shopping. It also serves a lot of color students. I'm really proud frankly of the work I have been able to do to support City Market. I'm really proud of City Market and its staff and the board who served tirelessly to get this thing done. I think we have the best co-op in the country. I think we have the greatest co-op in the country and when people come and see it from other places they go, cool place, I want to shop here. So I'm really happy. Thank you for this time to be able to say a few words. Hi, I'm Jen Chadburn. I'm here on behalf of Upstate Elevator. We are very excited to be celebrating City Market's 50th anniversary. We're so excited. We've had a partnership with them for years and we're just so excited for them to be hitting their 50th anniversary out here. It's a beautiful day. My purpose for being here today is to explain to our clients what our products do. We sell all the products that we have on our table are available at City Market for purchase but often times I find that people have some questions about what is CBD, what is CBN and what is CBG. So we're here clarifying all of that. I will quickly say that CBN is excellent for staying asleep and CBG is an awesome daytime alternative. None of these are psychoactive for just upping your quality of life in this human body that we're in. We are so grateful and we hope that you can find our products at City Market. This is Ryan with Jones the Boy. We've been selling cookies in the pastry case of City Market for the past six plus years. We love City Market. Folks love our cookies and we're down here at the 50th anniversary of City Market celebrating and giving out cookies. Hi, my name is Dan. I work over at Brio Coffee Works. City Market's been one of our biggest supporters ever since we started a few years ago and being able to carry our coffees in their stores and share them with the community has been really great for us and they've been nothing but great supporters. Hello, my name is Nurbu Sherpa. I run a food supply business called Sherpa Foods. We make and supply Nepalese dumplings, momos. We have momosauce, which are Himalayan style hot sauce. We also have vegan chow mein, vegan fried rice. We currently supply our products in Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, yeah, to all the co-ops and stores. So, yep. I and Jake Warshaw own Stewards Bakery. We've owned it for two and a half years and what we do is make all natural, mostly European style artisan breads including brioche, some sweet breads and challah, baguettes, as well as artisan sourdough. We are here at City Market, which is one of our very most important customers. We're commercial bakery only, so we sell through Hannaford City Markets, Healthy Living, some of the local other markets. We sell to a number of restaurants and delicatessens and our whole position here is to provide all natural, all fresh, European style bread. Simple as that. The only deviation we make is biscotti and this is a very classic, all natural Italian biscotti recipe, crunchy the way it should be and we're based in Williston, Vermont and we're all local. Thank you. Hi, we're here from City Market today, celebrating our 50th anniversary. Today we're making some Curried Maple Wind Farm Chicken Salad. We're young at heart, ginger beer. We're a very young company, very excited to be at City Market. We're here to send us at the kombucha stand. We're here to share the love and the sweetness with the community who have been very warm and welcoming and responded well to our product. What a fun event. Hi, I'm Rose Gomez. I work for Cabot Creamery, so we're here today sampling a variety of cabbage cheeses. We're a farmer owned co-op that started originally in Vermont but has farms all throughout New England and New York and City Market is just a great partner of ours. Sells a lot of our cheeses. We're very happy to be here today and to be able to give everyone a little taste of some of the world's best cheddar that we've got. We're Mackenzie and we're here showing the Mackenzie Switch Brot made with Switchback Ale. We've been doing business with City Market for years and love being here and supporting their 50th anniversary. And yeah, getting to show this great product to all these great people. Hi there, I'm Cren Barbary, owner of Cren's Bakery and I'm here sampling our products, the Coconut Honey Macaroons, our best seller at City Market. We're here celebrating City Market's 50th anniversary, which City Market's one of our best co-ops that we sell at, meaning we sell a lot of product there and they do awesome display for us.