It’s the week of Thanksgiving, and we’re all poised to craft time with friends and family. Food will be prepared and ovens warmed as respite against the cold as we ease into fall weather - the sleepy cozy of winter already seeping in.

The seasons fold into each other much more quietly this time of year, and love is a particular focus: families--both of-origin and chosen--are so special in light of another pandemic year filled with its own challenges. 

We hope that, wherever you are, we can help you craft a meal with those you love. There are still some turkeys left, and Field Day canned veggies are on sale, as are Imagine veggie and chicken broths. We have canned cranberry sauce and fresh cranberries in produce. Our veggies are here and ready for all your sides and additions. Baking ingredients like Wholesome Cane Sugar and King Arthur’s flours are key along with Let’s Do Organic coconut flakes and Dandies vegan marshmallows. Don’t forget to grab a few extra cans of pumpkin and some of our seasonal squashes.

We understand that crafting memories and resting from this year and the last one deserves good ingredients: we hope you’ll be able to lean on us for that!

As always, we’ll carry our local farms and brands: plenty of Creature Comfort beer, local wines, Luna bread, and local gift items. 

Our hours of operation are the same except for the day of Thanksgiving (Thursday, the 25th); on that day, we’ll be open from 8:00 AM until 12:00 PM. Next week, our normal hours will resume: Monday - Friday, 8:00 AM - 8:00 PM and Saturday - Sunday, 10:00 AM - 8:00 PM.

Purchasing from the Daily Groceries Co-op will not only help us continue providing the goods we do, it helps us continue programs like Food For All and Wholesome Wave’s Georgia Fresh for Less program. If you round up for Daily Change at the register, you benefit the chosen recipient for the month: Athens Immigrant Rights Coalition. When you support your local co-op, you’re leveraging your purchasing power away from capitalist systems that degrade sustainability. With Daily, you’re supporting your neighbor and helping provide for a community. 

Here’s to a good season! Happy November. 

By Sage Rios, Wellness Buyer

We’ve got a few shelf highlights from our Wellness Department! All these folks are doing their part to care for Earth and we want to show them some love today!

Dayempur Farms Herbals:

This farm is located in Carbondale, Illinois. They nurture organic herbs on their 80 year old, natural farm and strive to keep their air, water, and soil as free from modern, industrial toxins as possible. They sustainably care for their land and provide their community with opportunities to learn about the benefits of herbs, how to maintain them in your home garden, and how to naturally care for yourself and your family. Daily carries their products in support of their mission to provide natural, organic herbal remedies to communities across the country. Be on the lookout for their demo once we get pass this virus! 

Here’s a few product recommendations from our team:

• Boo Boo Spray - Our wellness buyer used this when her dog found some poison ivy in her yard. It helped alleviate itching, rash, and inflammation. It can also be used for any cuts!

• Elecampane herbal tincture - This is great for keeping the respiratory system healthy. It helps strengthen lungs and bronchial passages. 

• Mullein Leaf herbal tincture - You can use this as a natural decongestant.

• Ear Oil - Use this to alleviate ear infections. Children can use it too.

• Breast Friend - This product is great for those who are breastfeeding or have any inflammation in the breast. It contains calendula and vitamin E. It’s great for people who have sensitive skin because it doesn't contain any essential oils.

• Herbal Salve - This little container is great to use for injuries. For one, it's nice and compacted; two, it has Daily's cute logo; and three, it can be used on cuts, bruises, burns, or dry skin.

• Bug Repellent - This is great natural alternative for bug spray. It’s good for sensitive skin and can be used on children. 

Jack n' Jill:

This company is based out of Australia. Their mission is to provide natural dental products for children and families while minimizing wastes. All of their packaging is recyclable and their toothbrush handles are biodegradable!

A few of our favorites:

• Teething Gel - Our wellness buyer has used this for her 4 month old's itchy gums. It has provided relief and they don't mind the taste! The great thing about this product that it is plant-based and natural.

• Children's Toothbrushes - They have cute little characters on them, come in fun flavors, and are biodegradable.

HeartSong Herbs:

This local farm provides the Athens community with local, organic herbal tincture that have been carefully nurtured in their greenhouse. They also host a local, medicinal herbs plant sale once a year to make medicinal herbs more accessible within the Athens community! 

• Allergy Tonic - This is great to combat the intensity of Georgia's allergens.

• Spirit Lift - With everything that is affected by the virus, it’s normal to feel a tad blue or out of place. This is great to use to help shift your perspective.

• Stay Well - This is a great immunity boost! Taking this before getting sick can really help with fighting off upcoming illnesses. Along with healthy eating and habits, of course.

• Reishi - It’s a great immunity boost. Reishi in particular can aid in better sleep quality, coping with stress, and combatting allergens.

• Echinacea - This is a traditional herbal preventative for many illnesses.

SunSoil CBD:

This company is located in Vermont. Their mission is to provide the community with natural, high quality CBD while keeping the price affordable. They provide their local farmers and community opportunities to learn how to sustainably grow hemp. 

We’d recommend:

• CBD cinnamon - This is the high potency formula (and we’d say it’s our favorite flavor). If you don’t like the herby taste of most CBD tinctures, you’ll like this.

• CBD chocolate mint - Our General Manager highly recommends adding this to your coffee. It’s a perfect treat!

• CBD Capsules - Convenient, easy dosing without the fuss of a tincture.

---

Resources:

• Info on Elecampane

• Info on Mullien

• Info on Ear Oil

We love Cooking Cooperatives, and we know our membership would create a great one! If you’re interested in starting a Cooking Cooperative with other Owner Members send us a note and we’ll link you to with other interested folks!

Here’s what one of our favorite cooperators, Matthew Epperson, has to say about Cooking Co-ops -

“What better way to build the co-op spirit, eat well and affordably, and build community all in the same stroke? I love how concrete and attainable this sort of cooking cooperative can be. To me, this speaks to the historical cooperation that humans have always done, but largely lost in the process of industrialized alienation. The very roots of mutual insurance, credit unions, food co-op stores, all of it, goes back to people working together to do more together than they could apart. And that such ideas seem so lofty can be disheartening, but this is the root, the minimum viable model of mutual aid and cooperation.”

Learn more about starting a Cooking Co-op here!

Published by VTDigger

By Anne Wallace Allen

May 8 2019

Four Vermont mobile home parks have been sold to become resident-owned cooperatives since the start of the year.

Lakeview Cooperative in Shelburne, Westbury Park in Colchester, Sunset Lake Cooperative in Hinesburg, and St. George Community Cooperative in St. George all worked with Cooperative Development Institute or CDI, a Northampton, Mass., nonprofit that helps small businesses and other entities form cooperatives.

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Helping mobile home park residents form a cooperative protects those residents from the uncertainty of living on land owned by someone else, said Andy Danforth, director of New England Resident Owned Communities, a CDI program.

Otherwise, if the land is sold for another purpose, the residents have to move their homes or lose them, and mobile homes are not easy to move.

“It costs a lot of money to move them if they move at all,” Danforth said. The homes are usually sitting on a slab and hooked up to water and sewer, with external improvements like stairs and landscaping. “In New England, it’s rare to see one move from a park.”

Even if the land continues to be used as a mobile home park, residents don’t have much control, Danforth said.

“Here’s the thing about landlords: You can have a great landlord, and we’ve all had terrible landlords,” he said. If landlords continually raise the rent, or fail to enforce park rules, he said, the residents are stuck.

“If you own it, you control it,” he said.

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When two of the four mobile home parks went up for sale, the owner, Burlington businessman Trey Pecor, asked Champlain Housing Trust to buy them, said Michael Monte, the trust’s chief operating and financial officer.

“We said, ‘You should work with CDI and residents in creating a coop,’” said Monte. “We made the introduction because that was the best thing. Trey was going to get the real value, and the people who lived there would have the opportunity to get really good financing and technical support and assistance.”

CDI’s NEROC has been converting mobile home parks to cooperatives since it started in 2009, said Danforth. It has now converted 13 in Vermont and 46 in New England.

According to the state Department of Housing and Community Development, which maintains a registry, there were 241 mobile home parks in Vermont in 2018. Those parks included more than 7,000 lots and had a vacancy rate of 5.1%. The average monthly rent was $340.

Vermont law uses the terms “mobile home” and “manufactured home” interchangeably, according to Housing and Community Development, which said on its website that only about 1% of the mobile homes in Vermont were moved in any given year.

Danforth said that Vermont law governing mobile home parks helps supports CDI’s goals.

“Vermont has some of the best laws in the country for anything to do with manufactured homes,” he said. “Residents have the right to purchase the community, the right to negotiate. In Texas you could be given five days notice and have to move our home; in Vermont I think it’s a year and a half.”

The St George Community Cooperative mobile home park. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger

Nowadays, the most common purchasers of mobile home parks in New England are residents, Danforth said. When CDI steps in, it talks to residents about the merits of cooperative ownership versus ownership by a nonprofit, and then participates in negotiations with the owner. CDI helps find the financing for the purchase price; Danforth said the nonprofit has received financing from the Vermont Community Loan Fund, the Vermont Housing Authority, the Cooperative Fund of New England, and the Vermont Housing Finance Association.

Residents don’t put any money down, Danforth said. Instead, the CDI loans cover the purchase price and residents repay the loan through their monthly rents.

The cooperative is governed by an elected board and committees. There is one vote per home, Danforth said; the board is almost always made up of park residents.

“Basically it’s a democracy like a small town,” he said.