Getting To Know Your Local Food Co-op

HOW MARQUETTE’S FOOD CO-OP REACHES OUT TO EDUCATE AND SERVE THE COMMUNITY FROM GARDEN TO PLATE!

Interior of community based hoop house built by the Marquette Food Co-op. (photo courtesy of the MFC Outreach Dept.)

Marquette, MI – Last fall I taught a group of fifth graders how to save seeds from tomatoes. We had fun squishing tomatoes, and they learned about the difference between open pollinated and hybrid seeds. A few weeks ago, I got a photo from their teacher. It’s of the entire class, with each child holding a tomato seedling that they raised from seeds they saved. They’re going to plant these tomatoes in their home gardens this summer.  

Teaching self reliance, passing on time-honored gardening practices, and improving food security in the rural UP is all part of the what the Co-op’s Outreach department does, but seeing these kids proudly holding their tomatoes was a moment when it all came together for me!” Abbey Palmer.

Our local food co-op has ongoing community cooking classes on a regular basis. (photo courtesy MFC Outreach Dept.)

Driving down Washington Street in Marquette, Michigan you can’t miss the expansion of the Food Co-op. From the quaint setting on Baraga, a small cozy building has transformed to meet the needs of our community as the love of organic and natural food has grown.

Knowledge of the importance of putting chemical free food in our bodies and the desire to support local farmers and companies that promise to use sustainable practices have made this community a place where a larger co-op is necessary. Now found at 502 Washington, the Marquette Food Co-op (MFC) caters to the public (no membership required!) providing a one stop shopping experience.

Aside from the great customer service, the organic local produce, the endless shelves of homeopathic remedies, local meat and good beer there is a group of people that call themselves the Outreach Department, and that is exactly what they do: Reach Out. I had the opportunity to sit down with two of the staff members, Sarah Monte and Abbey Palmer, who expressed absolute gratification for their jobs.

Gardening workshop taught by the Marquette Food Co-op Outreach Department. (photo courtesy MFC Outrach Dept.)

While many of the MFC staff members pride themselves on helping the day to day customers, the Outreach Department steps out into the community, actually to most of the Upper Peninsula, to teach students about healthy living, to provide various classes for the public, to maintain hoop houses for the communities to enjoy and to connect people with the farms where our local food is grown by coordinating farms tours.

U.P. residents learn about eating and preparing fresh produce during a community cooking class. (photo courtesy MFC Outreach Dept.)

Sarah Monte has spent the last six years expanding cooking classes for the community and spending time in school classrooms presenting green smoothie demonstrations. Cooking classes have been offered at Marquette High School in the past, but will now be held at the MFC building in the basement where a full kitchen classroom and space for seminars, movies and tasting will take place. What started as a monthly class rapidly doubled to every two weeks. Green smoothie requests have consistently grown and the possibility of private cooking classes are on the rise.

Sarah’s main goal for the upcoming year is to recreate the cooking classroom as it will now be a separate entity from the High School. There will be space for 16 to 20 community members to enjoy the kitchen classroom in a hands-on setting and almost double that for partaking in seminars, movies and tastings. Sarah loves her job because she gets to create a culture of joy around food. She enjoys sharing with people that eating whole foods and being healthy can still be a fun part of socializing.

Food prepared in a Food Co-op cooking class. (photo courtesy MFC Outreach Dept.)

When asked about her favorite aspect Sarah said, “The Marquette Food Co-op’s cooking classes cover all sorts of topics- healthy eating, international foods, local foods and sometimes even treat foods, like our class entirely about chocolate. What ties them all together is that they are a celebration of food, our contribution to joyful, communal food culture in Marquette and the Upper Peninsula.”

In addition to this repertoire, Sarah is also who you will meet for a “Getting to Know Your Co-op” class. These classes are free and open to the public; they will benefit anyone with special food needs, allergies or any folks new to the store.

Abbey Palmer has also seen incredible growth with the projects that she runs. Holding workshops that teach self reliance and sustainability have grown in attendance from about 10 people, four years ago, to presently including 50-70 people at a time. The community can’t get enough about beekeeping, raising chickens, collecting maple syrup and seed saving. Connecting people to the food on their plates, watching people change their relationship with food and having them take control of some part of their food life is exactly what Abbey loves about her job.

Learning to cook with natural foods bring healthy and delicious results! (photo MFC Outreach Dept.)

In the upcoming year she hopes to further promote the Farm to School Program, which allows schools to buy food from local farms, along with teaching schools how to use the seasonal surplus. She is also in the middle of potentially receiving more grant funds to further expand the already six U.P. hoop houses located on school grounds. If you are interested in volunteering or touring one of the local hoop houses please contact Abbey.

Aside from workshops and hoop houses, Abbey is also in the heart of this season’s local farm tours. There is no charge for the tours and it is open to the public. Stop in to the MFC for a pamphlet that includes times, dates and directions to each farm tour for the summer.

The Schedules:

Getting to know your Co-op classes are held the 2nd Monday 6pm and the 3rd Wednesday at 11am of every month.

Farm Tours:

Sunday, July 27th, 1-4pm Dancing Crane Farm

Sunday, August 24th, 1-4pm NMU Hoop House

Sunday, August 24th, 1-4pm Hannah’s Garden and Badger Creek Farm

Sunday, September 14th, 1-4pm Seeds & Spores and Ever Yielding Acres

Matt Guindon (left) and family at the Guidon farm. 4 generations stand before the first tractor the brothers who initially ran the farm purchased, which still runs today and pulls the hay wagon that people ride for that tour. (photo by Candace Prill)

The Numbers:

In 2013, 8,928 people attended classes, food demos, presentations and films. 163 people attended Out Reach workshops. 460 pounds of food was harvested from the NMU Hoop House by twenty-two volunteers.

The Contacts:

Sign up for a class or get information on volunteering

Abbey Palmer (906) 225-0671 x725 apalmer@marquettefood.coop

Sarah Monte (906) 225-0671 x723 smonte@marquettefood.coop

Outreach Director: Natasha Lantz (906) 225-0671 x711 nlantz@marquettefood.coop

by Candace Prill

Being raised in a small Michigan town has taught me many things; being one with nature, eating whole foods and living in a sustainable way are just a few. My family and I currently reside in Marquette, where we can grow a garden downtown, bike anywhere in the city and enjoy endless nature just outside of the city limits. In the past several years I have been lucky to be a part of researching, writing and teaching about whole living. You can find my monthly nutrition column “Healthier Living” in the Great Lakes Pilot that I have been writing for the past two years. You can also find my published geological research in “Agates: Inside Out” by Karen Brzys. My passion is to live and, teach to live, in a sustainable way, both nutritionally and environmentally. I look forward to sharing my articles on sustainable living here at Marquette Magazine.

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