October is Co-op Month. In celebration, our Seedlings recipient for the month is Eastside Food Co-op’s Cooperative Community Fund. Round up your purchases all month long to support our fellow food co-ops and triple your impact. The first $1,000 donated by shoppers this month will be matched by Equal Exchange, Frontier Co-op and Eastside!

Our Cooperative Community Fund is an endowment (similar to a scholarship fund) that is administered through Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation (a 501c3 non-profit organization), which makes donations to our community fund tax deductible. As we put more money in this fund, we accrue more interest. We use the interest gained each year to support organizations working in the food access, agriculture and environmental sectors. How great!

The Eastside Food Co-op Cooperative Community Fund endowment is pooled by Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation with over 40 other food co-op community funds. Twin Pines invests in co-op development organizations. These groups have in turn lent these funds to over 30 US food co-ops. These hard working funds leverage over $40 million for the development and growth of fellow food co-ops.