A Brief History of our Grocery Co-op Neighbors
October is Co-op Month and Cooperation Among Cooperatives is Cooperative Principle #6 (that sentence is a mouthful). The year 2022 is also the 50th Anniversary of the formation of the buying club that eventually became the Davis Food Co-op. Since we have already explored 50 Changes over the past 50 Years of our Co-op and have Looking Back: A Davis Food Co-op History (1972-1984) available for your viewing pleasure, we wanted to take this opportunity to let you know a little bit more about our local grocery co-op neighbors in the Greater Sacramento region! You may find yourselves in any one of these cities from time-to-time and when you do, we definitely encourage you to check them out.
Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op
Our cooperative cousins across the Causeway (another mouthful) started in a very similar fashion to the DFC. Also started as a buying club in 1972, they first opened a storefront of primarily bulk foods at 16th and P Streets in downtown Sacramento. They officially incorporated in 1973 as the Sacramento Natural Foods Cooperative and from there, a Board of Directors was elected and the first paid employee was hired.
(Side note: An important distinction for co-ops to make is when they crossover from being a buying club to an actual incorporated cooperative. While we got our start as a buying club in 1972 and claim that as our foundation for our 50th Anniversary, our official incorporation process did not begin until 1977 and was not completed until 1981. Other co-ops, like SNFC, instead choose to mark the start of their incorporation as an officially recognized cooperative as their anniversary date. Like with all things co-op, this is the beauty of differences between each one!)
The SNFC spent 43 years at multiple locations in Sacramento before moving to its current location at 28th and R streets in Midtown Sacramento in 2016. As a natural foods store, they are known for their standards that products must abide by to hit their shelves. This includes, among other criteria:
- Unprocessed foods such as 100% organic produce, whole grains, nuts, and beans.
- Products that are minimally refined or processed.
- Foods that meet the needs of special diets such as wheat-free, sugar-free, dairy-free, salt-free, gluten-free and vegan.
- Animal products that are raised or produced in a humane manner, using sustainable methods; for example, through free range rearing and by organic standards
BriarPatch Food Co-op
Another 70s baby in the Greater Sacramento region is BriarPatch Food Co-op in Grass Valley. Their first retail store opened in 1976 when their early founders restructured their buying club to look more like co-ops they had seen in the Bay Area at the time (their name even came from a former co-op in Menlo Park!). Like most co-ops at the time (including ours), the store was open only to Members who were required to volunteer time working at the store as well.
After three location moves and a steady increase of sales and Membership over the years, BriarPatch opened its current location in 2007 off the Sierra College roundabout. BriarPatch has since released a 2025 Sustainability Goals Plan to achieve 100% renewable energy and 100% of food waste diverted from landfills by 2025. They are also in the process of opening up a second location in Auburn!
Placerville Food Co-op
The newest kid on the co-op block in our region is Placerville Food Co-op. Unlike the others in this blog that started as buying clubs in the 70s, PFC’s story began much more recently in 2008 when their planning process began. It took only three years for that planning to become reality with the store opening to the public in October 2011. Since then, they have surpassed 2,000 Owners of their co-op and they are continuing to grow! With that growth has come the need for some renovations at the store. PFC is looking to complete these renovations with some help from their community and the co-op community as a whole. If you find it within your means, they are asking for donations here.
Davis Forest School – DFC’s 2022 Apple a Day Recipient
Each year, the Co-op donates $0.10 for every pound of apples sold over the course of our fiscal year through our “Apple a Day” program. With 60,275.25 lbs of apples sold from October 2021 – September 2022, we were left with $6,275.25 to donate to a local nonprofit organization.
For this year’s donation, we have chosen Davis Forest School as our recipient.
The $6,275.25 donation will directly support the expansion of their Winter 2023 Program to include an additional skill-based class for 15 more children in the Davis community.
Our Marketing Manager Vince and Education and Outreach Specialist Anna recently sat down with founder Candice Wang, and had her answer a few questions about Davis Forest School:
1. Can you Tell us about Davis Forest School and how it came to fruition?
Davis Forest School is a non-profit nature play and outdoor education organization, and
was founded in early 2018. Our goal is to promote and cultivate understanding of, and
empathy for, the natural world, and for the local bioregion (in particular, the ecosystem of Putah Creek and the lower Sacramento River watershed).
Our programming is based on the forest school model, which meets outdoors in the wild, over time, and is a co-creating experience between children and the Forest Mentors.
This organization came to fruition from me being a mother to very spirited and wild
children. Motherhood was an initiation into deconditioning and healing from certain
aspects of my own childhood, and a commitment to following the lead of my children in
what they need. We discovered the forest school model together, and the first time I
spent hours in nature with my kiddos, I just felt so much peace. I could see all the ways
we are disconnected from our lives, each other, the land, and how important it is to find a sense of connection again. My children’s wildness led me to this work, and the layers of depth with our connection to this land keeps me here.
Davis Forest School is also a testament of what can be created from a tapestry of
community members who share a vision and are deeply devoted and passionate to their work. Rosemary Roberts, a parent to one of our first students, took on running the
school when I moved away for a couple of years, and was the person to establish DFS
as a community entity. We are now supported and led by a team of parents behind the
scenes. We also have the most wonderful Forest Mentors who take so much ownership
over what we do, such as Molly Damore Johann, who was the person to connect us
with this opportunity with the Davis Food Co-op.
2. Why do you believe this way of schooling is a good alternative to formal schooling?
For now, we don’t replace other schooling models because we mostly run as an
afterschool program (although we have a homeschool morning class that we would like to expand!). Our organization is more of a counter environment to the formal schooling that children receive, and divests from our culture’s fixation on busyness. Rather than having a top-down model of education, we allow space for spontaneous learning through unstructured imaginative play and exploration. Our staff members are “Forest Mentors”, and not “teachers”, and take on the role of guides for the kiddos during our time out in nature together. We trust children in their innate sense to learn through play and exploration. Our programming is child-led, although we follow a daily rhythm and include naturalist studies, nature connection routines, and earth skills. When children are told what to do, what they need to learn, or what our time together should look like, this can cause them to shut down and resist what’s in front of them. When children have space to just be, their curiosity and sense of openness expands. Children learn so much from following their curiosities, and by returning to the same natural spaces over and over again, throughout the seasons and years.
3. Why is land acknowledgement and reparations an important part of Davis
Forest School?
Our work is deeply entwined with the land. Since time immemorial, the Patwin people have been stewards of this land. Acknowledging that we are on occupied Patwin land, through words, is the very bare minimum entry into land acknowledgement. We are learning that true land acknowledgement comes from how we run our program, and through partnering with Indigenous folks and support organizations. As a society, we need to move away from a model where we commodify nature, where we view it as something to further extract from. Nature programming can easily become about how nature can serve us. Beyond words, land acknowledgment is embracing and honoring Indigenous models of being in reciprocal relationship with the land.
DFS offers reparations to our Black and Indigenous families because we are running land-based programming on stolen land, in a country that was built on the backs of Black labor. Offering reparations is also a step towards dismantling systems of power, and prioritizing equity, in outdoor spaces.
4. What are some of the things the kiddos have said they enjoy the most in the programs?
We hear from the kiddos that they really enjoy swimming and playing in the creek. They love whittling, building shelter, catching crayfish, and going on expeditions. The kiddos have high-excitement moments when we see certain animals, like an otter eating trout by the shoreline. The children love our Forest Mentors, and having time together each week. At the start of our Fall Program last month, a few children said that Forest School is unlike any school they’ve been to before, and that they are free to play. I think children come into our program expecting what they know to be school, because we have “school” in our name. It reaffirms the work we do when we witness children open up and embrace their sense of autonomy in a higher freedom environment.
