By: Anya Firszt, General Manager
Hello dear Owners,
April marks the beginning of the fourth quarter of our fiscal year. This is a busy month when we dive into budget planning for the next fiscal year, and wrap up special projects from the current fiscal year.
Also this month we have a few dates to think about including April Fool’s Day and the Spring General Election (both fall on the 1st), Arbor Day, tax day, and Earth Day to name a few.
Earth Day – April 22
Earth Day is celebrating its 55th anniversary this year. What will you do to support Earth Day this year?
As a reminder, here are three relatively small but mighty things you can do to reduce/reuse/recycle:
- Subscribe to receive the Reader electronically if you like (or don’t mind) reading online; this will help to reduce our use of paper. You sign up at willystreet.coop/emails.
- For every reusable shopping bag you use at the register, we contribute 10¢ to the Double Dollars program.
- We are once again collecting paper grocery bags at the stores for use at our local food pantry partners.
To learn more about what the Co-op has done to contribute to the wellness of the planet by reducing, reusing, and recycling, check out the article on page 6.
At the Co-op, we’re celebrating Earth Day for a whole week; from April 21–27. You can save 15% on your bulk purchases, excluding bulk water and coffee. Shopping in our bulk aisle helps reduce waste through minimizing single-use packaging (or eliminating it, if you bring your own sanitized container). Check out the Co-op Deals sales later in the month on page 16, and the eco-friendly Staff Picks on page 20 for ideas about sustainable products.
For your gardening pleasure, seeds and gardening products are in stock and locally grown, organic seedlings will be available mid-month. For more details, see the Spring Gardening Flyer on page 18 of this issue.
Earth Fest
Earth Fest organizers are the UW Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and Office of Sustainability. The dates are April 21–29, 2025. Wondering how you can get involved or become more informed, email Earth Fest organizers at earthfest@nelson.wisc.edu.
Owner Community Perks
To help celebrate our 50th Anniversary, we partnered with 44 local businesses who are giving Co-op Owners a perk for shopping or buying at their establishment. This is a year-long opportunity beginning last October. Owners can still get extra discounts at local businesses. For the list of participating businesses, check our website at willystreet.coop/community-perks. All you need to do is either present your Co-op Ownership card or verbally share your Owner number to qualify for their extra discount.
Community Reinvestment Fund Awards
This month we announce our Community Reinvestment Fund (CRF) grant recipients in an article in this issue of the Reader. You can read more about the wonderful projects being funded by our CRF grants on page 25. This year we increased our grant allocation to $85,000 bringing the total amount awarded since we began this program to $673,500. Congratulations to this year’s CRF recipients.
Boycott Policy update
Last fall and into the winter, we had Owners voice their opinion that we stop selling Sabra Hummus that was only carried at one of our stores. We also heard from Owners that they didn’t want this product removed. We followed our Boycott Policy, which required us to collect input from 1% of total Owners, post a comment period, and then determine the outcome, in this case, to pull the product due to low sales. We realized in hindsight that the policy needed to be updated to better provide Owners with a process that can be used to share concerns and information with each other, which has now been done. See the revised Owner Boycott Policy at willystreet.coop/boycotts.
I’ll leave you with this thought from Marty Rubin, “April is the kindest month. April gets you out of your head and out working in the garden.”
Warm regards,
Anya
