Steering Committee Members (L to R): Marie-Alise, Pagan, Bahni, Sankofa, and Milo.  Not pictured members include Michael, Lauren, Keisa and Shondrina.

Curious to find out more about the SoLA Food Co-op?  Do you want to get involved in more fun events while supporting a great cause? Now’s your chance!

We are having our next Community Empowerment Event “Locally Sourced” 3:30-7:30PM Saturday May 18, 2013 @ The William Grant Still Arts Center, 2520 S. West View Street, L.A. 90016.

Join us for an afternoon of empowering speakers covering topics surrounding organic foods, sustainability and well being.  There will be musical performances by local bands, spoken word artists, and special guest host, Tony Award winning performing artist, Poetri. Delicious organic food dishes will be served.

Suggested donation: $5

You do NOT want to miss the next event!

Everything about the night exceeded our expectations: incredible music, food to satisfy any palate and every diet, and the coolest folks you’d ever want to hang out with. Check out a few of the first images we got from the proceedings. More will be posted soon. If you have any that you’d like to share, please email them to us here or find us on Facebook and Twitter. More fun events are coming up, so please stay tuned…

And don’t forget, our next general meeting is 7:30-9PM this Thursday, September 13th in the Community Room at the Crenshaw Mall. Click here for more info.

In the article, Bahni relates how beneficial a food co-op can be: bringing higher quality food, improved health, jobs and more, to those that it serves.

Here are 3 ways you can read and share the article:

1. Read it on LA Yoga Magazine’s free online version: click here.
2. Download a PDF version: click here.
3. Or click on the images below. You can click and drag the images to view the whole page.

Keep spreading the word: SoLA is coming to South Los Angeles!

Join Us at the 1st SoLA Food Co-op Fundraiser
August 18th at Club Fais Do Do

featuring our celebrity host: actress Vanessa Williams

Plenty of fun for everyone, we have an evenings worth of entertainment: music, DJs, dancers, games, raffles, and of course, delicious, wholesome organic FOOD! Tell your friends!!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE SURVEY.

Please fill it out and email it back to us at info@solafoodcoop.com

Thank You very much! Your response will bring us that much closer to purchasing some organic apples and fresh kale right here in our neighborhood delivered by our local grower!

Your input is vital and along with a timely response. Bank lenders and Grantors highly favor original data- which is what is needed to make SoLA a reality! Please be assured that the information collected from the survey will remain anonymous.  Once the survey is received, it will be placed in a folder, where a UCLA graduate student will code the information into our statistical analysis program.  This will allow us to analyze strictly the data within the survey.

This Just In: Discounted Tickets to the Play “Cafe Vida” for filling out the Survey!

If you fill out the SoLA Survey you can also get discount tickets to the play Cafe Vida, featuring our founding member Bahni Turpin! Just mention to the people at the box office that you are with the SoLA Food Co-op and pay only $10 per a ticket, discounted from $20. That’s half price! Here are the details:

Acclaimed playwright Lisa Loomer pens the first play in The Hunger Cycle, a collaboration between Cornerstone, Homeboy Industries and Homegirl Café. Chabela and Luz are rival homegirls ready to leave the life and begin anew at Café Vida — the only place in the city that gives young women and their troubled pasts a genuine second chance to start a new life free of violence. It’s here that these former enemies choose “la vida” over “la muerte” as they learn to compost, tend a garden, julienne an onion, and rock your lunch order with a smile and a heaping side of transformation.

TIMES & DATES
APRIL 26 – MAY 20, 2012
previews April 26 – May 4; opening night – Saturday, May 5
Thursdays – Saturdays @ 8 p.m., Sundays @ 2 p.m.
*Just added* Wednesday, May 16 @ 8 p.m.

LOCATION:
Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC) – Theatre 3
514 South Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013

More Info @ Cornerstone Theater

SoLA Food Co-op Needs YOU!

Are you tired of driving to Hollywood, Culver City and Santa Monica to buy fresh organic foods? As gas prices soar, now more than ever we need to be able to shop for the healthy foods we prefer right here in our community! Since last June, a group of like-minded individuals have been meeting and planning a solution to the problem of all those retail dollars leaving our community. The solution is the SoLA Food Co-op.

We aim to open a full service natural foods grocery right here in our neighborhood of South Los Angeles. A place not only to shop for food, but a place to learn about eating healthier, cooking healthier, and healing ourselves through nutrition. A place to meet up with friends to share a bite or even to hold a function . Best of all , a co-op is a member owned store governed democratically by a board of directors who represent you. The members will help shape this store and share in the profits. If this is a new concept to you, check out Co-opportunity, a well established co-op in Santa Monica. www.cooportunity.com

While it’s been a few months since we called a general meeting, the SoLA steering committee has been hard at work. There are some new developments and tactics on the table. Now the time has come to plan and organize our first fundraiser, set for mid June 2012. Please come and lend your skills, bring friends, neighbors, any one who is interested in the cause of having our own natural food hub in south L.A. It’s time to expand the steering committee so we can move forward . We specifically need people with legal skills, retail management skills, construction ,accounting, and design skills, and people who are good at marketing, networking and getting the word out. Even if none of that sounds like you , if you have TIME to donate, we can use you ! Many of you have expressed interest , but haven’t yet shown up to a meeting, so please come and show your solidarity with this cause. Why wait?

We hope to add your voice to the pool on April 10th

Refreshments will be served!

Please come to an organizational meeting of the South Los Angeles Food Co-op
April 10th, 7pm at Lotus On The Nile Wellness Center
4307 Crenshaw Blvd. Los Angeles, CA.

Where and when?

Thursday February 16th
6 PM – 8:30 PM
Community Health Councils Office
3731 Stocker Street, Los Angeles, CA 90008
2nd Floor Conference Room

RSVPs can be sent to:

Clare Fox
Project Coordinator
Community Market Conversion Program
claremfox.cmc@gmail.com
www.communitymarketconversion.org
1200 West 7th Street / Suite 200
Los Angeles, CA 90017

Some Background info from the folks at CMC:

As many of you know, the Community Market Conversion Program (CMC) is a grant-funded initiative of the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles (CRA/LA). Just before the New Year, the California Supreme Court ruled that Assembly Bill x1-26 (“The Dissolution Act” dissolving all redevelopment agencies in California) is constitutional and Assembly Bill x1-27 (the “Alternative Redevelopment Program Act” that would have allowed continued operations provided that agreements were made to make payments to fund schools and special districts) is unconstitutional.  Therefore, as of January 31, 2012, CRA/LA (and all redevelopment agencies across the state) ceased to exist. For the past several weeks, we’ve been working hard to protect the status of the CMC pilot in South LA and most importantly the remodeling plans for the four stores.

At this stage, we are pleased to say that CMC project has been placed on the “Enforceable Obligations Payment Schedule (EOPS),” which is being administered by the Governor-appointed Designated Local Authority (“DLA”) that oversees projects of the former Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles as of February 1, 2012. The community and health activities funded by the County Department of Public Health’s Project RENEW and the California Endowment are continuing forward. As before, the grant-supported “pilot” period of the CMC program will conclude at the end of April, but we believe that the construction funding to renovate the 4 CMC stores is still intact.