The Lowdown

Brooklyn Co-op, aka “Know Thy Food”, has been a presence in our neighborhood for over a decade. We have been both a café, grocery store, and neighborhood hangout hosting a variety of free community events, especially kid friendly musical performances, crafts fairs, local food vendor meet-and-greets, and much more.

During the pandemic, like many local businesses, we faced now familiar challenges, including vacancies of subtenants and lost rental income in the larger building we rent and are responsible for. Unfortunately, though, unlike other, more conventional businesses, we were not able to qualify for help such as the “Paycheck Protection Program” (PPP), which initially required applicants to be a minimum one quarter owner of the business for which they were applying for loans (an obvious impossibility for a co-op with a membership base of any more than exactly four people).

We are still recovering from these and other lingering pandemic side effects. But now, with a re-energized board and new volunteers, we have big plans! 

We want to reopen our café

Reopening our café is important to us, and we know many in our neighborhood and beyond miss it! 

We are building relationships with new vendors, and rekindling old ones

Our co-op has always been a hub for unique, wholesome food products hard to find elsewhere, from locally grown Oregon olives, to bottles of raw milk that have the name of the cow who supplied it! (Courtesy our partner Helios Farm.) But we want to do much more, including introducing people to many more local, small farms, for example, via our own “mix-and-match” CSA boxes (assembling boxes that include foods from multiple farms, and possibly a combination of meat, veggies, and other offerings, something we have done in the past).

Also we are especially excited to be joined by an amazing new neighbor and subtenant, “Shwop” Thrift Shop, with whom we look forward to partnering!

We are engaging our neighborhood and community

Developing our membership and volunteer recruitment are high priorities for us. As a democratically run consumer co-op, we know that membership and community engagement are our most vital assets, upon which our future survival and success will hinge.

Risks & Challenges

In its decade of existence, our store has had its ups and downs, and we can’t pretend that the pandemic didn’t hit us especially hard. The holes it created in our budget have left us with an urgent need to address deferred maintenance, refinance or retire outstanding debt, and expand our customer base and outreach. And we cannot do all this without your support! 

Other Ways You Can Help

Some people just can’t contribute, but that doesn’t mean they can’t help:

• Ask folks to get the word out and make some noise about our campaign.
• Become a member (https://knowthyfood.coop/membership)
• Become a member volunteer! (email: volunteering@knowthyfood.coop)