Create Positive Change
Each time you shop at the co-op, you have a chance to directly support local community partners by donating your 10-cent reusable bag credits and rounding up your purchases to the nearest dollar. It may only be a few cents or spare change, but your generosity makes a huge impact — to the tune of over $10,000 each month for our Positive Change recipients!
TC Food Justice
January’s Positive Change recipient is TC Food Justice (TCFJ), which picks up fresh food that would otherwise be wasted and delivers it to hunger-relief organizations around the Twin Cities. TCFJ seeks to improve food insecure individuals’ access to fresh, nutritious food by “rescuing” food while also reducing the amount of food wasted.
TCFJ has 35 active food donor organizations, including Mississippi Market, which are matched with 55 recipient hunger-relief organizations. TCFJ picks up perishables from all three Mississippi Market locations each Saturday, totaling around 1,000 lbs. of food per month. In addition to food rescue, they run two other programs:
- Full Fridge Initiative, which partners with social service organizations to set up free food shelves in nontraditional settings such as clinics or transitional housing. TCFJ provides refrigerators to sites as needed and then directly stocks the refrigerators and kitchens weekly, filling them with high-quality, fresh food in a trusted, safe and convenient location.
- Priceless Produce Program, which partners with residents in public housing to provide free pop-up produce markets. The weekly food distribution event has helped to eliminate the cost and travel concerns many of the residents face when trying to access fresh foods for their households. It has also provided a weekly social opportunity for residents volunteering to help with the event and for those coming to select their own fresh food.
Donations collected at the registers will be used to support an upgrade in software to manage volunteers, donations and deliveries and expand TCFJ’s program operations further into St. Paul.