The Co-op Q&A with Sarah Chinn
Store Coordinator Lindsay Reichart (left) and Merchandising Co-Chair Sarah Chinn (right) after the proposal to relocate the Co-op passed in a unanimous vote, an amazing turnaround from the feared closure. After days spent looking for spaces and drafting an Indiegogo campaign, this dynamic duo presented their findings to over 60 member-owners and the Board at a special meeting of the membership, providing us with a promising opportunity to continue, and even improve, our neighborhood co-op.
Sarah Chinn is a founding member of the Co-op who has been especially busy this past month, spearheading our Indiegogo campaign. Below, she shares why she’s involved in this work and how the relocation proposal came to be.
Q: How did you first become involved with the Greene Hill Food Co-op? What were some of your reasons for joining?
A: I’ve been involved since we were meeting in a church hall. I’d been a member of the Park Slope Food Coop since 1990, when it was in just a single store without a produce cooler, freezers, or scanners, and had less than a thousand members. After moving to Clinton Hill in 1999 it was more and more difficult to get over there, especially after our kids were born, and the sense of community I had felt at Park Slope was not keeping up with its enormous growth. I was looking for the same values closer to home, without the lines, crowds, and shlep. So once I heard that a co-op was opening here, I jumped on board!
Q: At the last all-member meeting, you and Lindsay presented a proposal for relocating the Co-op, which was unanimously approved. How did that come about?
A: That’s a great question! I think I had been in denial about the possibility that the Co-op could close, and had just been carrying on as though nothing would change. When we got the lease termination notice and the Board decided that our only financially responsible option was to close and declare bankruptcy, I realized that we had to at least see what was out there. I knew that a committee of members had put in a lot of work last year to try to find a new location, but prices were too high, and negotiations fell through. But I knew, too, that commercial rents had softened quite a bit since then, and it was worth trying again. Lindsay jumped in with a couple of possible properties, and we researched about ten more. Lindsay did a lot of the leg work — looking at spaces, talking to realtors. She really liked the Fulton Street storefront, and as soon as I saw it I agreed.
I realized that we needed to raise money, so I researched some crowd-funding possibilities. There was no way we could do this without major fundraising! Indiegogo made the most sense, so I drafted a campaign. I wrote up a proposal, and shared the draft with the Board and some other folks who had expressed interest. At the same time, Lindsay brought in some members who could assess the space and do a preliminary floor plan.
We presented all of that at the meeting. I thought it was an amazing conversation: we had to work through what the risks and advantages of the move would be, and take the Board’s recommendation seriously. It really was cooperation at work.
Q: What roles do you play at the Co-op?
A: I’m the co-chair of the Merchandise Committee — we’re responsible for everything you see on the shelves at the Co-op! I order dairy and frozen items. A lot of that work is tracking sales with our Point- of-Sale system, Revel. It’s a great tool for working out what’s selling and how fast. I also fill in as cashier when there are open shifts I can make. It’s great to close the merch loop: seeing members buying items that I’ve ordered, getting real feedback about what members like and why.
Q: Why is the Co-op valuable to you personally?
A: I really love this neighborhood! We moved here almost twenty years ago because it was a historically African-American, mixed-income, queer-friendly area. It seemed like the perfect place for us. We were excited about being involved in local projects that benefited the neighborhood — helping start a co-operative preschool, participating in a CSA — and the Co-op was an extension of that. Just as important, I like being able to know what food I’m buying, where it comes from, supporting local farms and producers.
Q: What do you do when you’re not at the Co-op?
A: I teach in the English department at Hunter College, and I’m also the department chair. My partner and I have 16-year-old twins (who eat most of the food we buy at the Co-op!), two cats, and two guinea pigs. I play the guitar (badly), run and bike (slowly), and bake a lot.