The HARVEST MARKET - online store is open.  Customers have already begun to buy groceries on-line.  Buyers can pick-up their groceries at our Curb-side location; without having to get out of their car.  The pick-up location is: 663 Peters Creek Parkway.  As an option, Items purchased on-line, can also be delivered.
 
Go to your store and look around. Our product selection is vast.  Nevertheless, we will, at your request, continue to add more items each week. We invite you to visit and make purchases.  If you need help, or have questions, call Nicole at: 743-333-0227 
 
Within a month we will begin to offer incentives and promotions. Because membership has benefits – we remind you to sign-in during your visits.
 
We are soliciting feedback and product recommendations. In fact, we are asking for your receipts from your recent visits to other food markets.  Take a picture with your smart phone and text it to: 743-333-0227
 
Nicole, our eCommerce Representative, is eager to assist and to answer questions.
 
Feedback and/or questions can be emailed to: orders@HarvestMarket.store
or call: 743-333-0227

LOVE in Action

Our friends at LOVE OUT LOUD are planning the: Christmas for the City (CFTC) event, for Saturday, Dec. 19, 4-8pm, beginning at the WS Fairgrounds…
 
This year the CFTC, will involve three components:
 
o    DRIVE-THROUGH: starting at the WS Fairgrounds cars proceed through stationary “floats”—or more accurately: “encouragement stations!”— hosted by churches, nonprofits and community partners to “love on the city” in a multiple ways.
o    DRIVE-IN: then, a simple, brief (20-25 minute) and deeply meaningful service at the drive-in movie set-up on the Midway streamed live, with a prayer wall for cards as cars exit.
o    DRIVE-ON: and send attendees out to other opportunities that same night, such as various drive-through nativity scenes and other activities happening on location at various churches and community partner sites.

Need more information, see the CFTC website http://www.christmasforthecity.com

Constructing our Future

1. This morning the Reinvestment Fund announced that it will award SHARE a $200,000 grant. The fund, through its capacity for the Healthy Food Financing Initiative at USDA Rural Business-Cooperative Service, will provide funding for the needed equipment for the anchor store; https://www.investinginfood.com/impact/.

2. Work on our 635 site (our anchor store in the West Salem Shopping Center) has begun. Demolition is being completed and construction is being scheduled.

3. SHARE is excited to announce the hiring of our new, permanent, General Manager. Barnaby Urich-Rintz.  Barnaby, who comes to us from Olympia, WA, has been in the food industry for many years.  He has an interest in food justice and the work necessary to build trust among individuals from diverse neighborhoods.  We are pleased to have Barnaby on our team.

SHARE is proud to announce the hiring of our new, eCommerce Coordinator.  Her name is Nicole Little.  Nicole is from Winston-Salem and is skilled in performance improvement, solving problems, and prioritizing heavy workloads.  Nicole has experience in personnel recruitment, personnel selection and training. We are pleased to have Nicole on our team.

4. In the short time since we began selling groceries on-line, we have produced more than  $6,000 in sales.  As we continue to expand our grocery offerings, we're excited to see more customers shop with us...

5. Last week SHARE was approved to immediately begin to accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) benefits.

6. In this up-coming week we will continue to petition the County Commissioners - Forsyth County - to provide the final contribution needed to open our anchor store.

In the words of our friend Peter Schlachte, “As excited and proud as we are, we didn't spend the whole month celebrating—there's tasks to be done: food to stock on our shelves, grants to apply for, and a whole grocery store to build.”

Our next task is the big one: opening the full-service brick-and-mortar location for the Harvest Market. 

So, how can you help? In the past few weeks SHARE applied for three more food grants. In the coming weeks, we hope to hear back from any of the opportunities for which we have applied; but in the meantime, we need your support! If you are able, donate to SHARE, or shop online from the Harvest Market to support our mission of ending food insecurity in Forsyth County! 

Your friends at,

SHARE Cooperative of Winston-Salem

"

The Reverend's Corner
 

As I look at this month’s issue of “Our Story,” of the SHARE Chronicle I am really taken by the progress we have made. Even though this year has had its challenges. We have stayed focused on the goal of opening the first full-service food market whose primary commitment is addressing food insecurity and uniting our community across the racial divides.  As a matter of fact, one might say we are that much more ahead because of the COVID. However, there is a more urgent crisis in your (our) midst!

As the outcome of the elections unfolds, the American version of “democracy” is hanging in the balance. We were once a country that had been the model of democracy [for every other nation] around the world.  However, turning to scripture for democratic guidance can illuminate the age-old message: love God, love your neighbor.

This idea of loving one’s neighbor is an age-old command in the Christian story of life with other human beings. However, in these United States we find after 400 years of fighting for democracy our nation is divided almost half and half on the matter of what democracy should look like. To top it off, the divide goes through religious sectors in a similar manner. With that said, there are folks in the faith community whose faith is directed by ideological beliefs of “selfhood” instead of “brotherhood,” the authentic biblical morals and ethics for all humanity.

SHARE Family, we are in a dilemma of theological and moral proportions. We are facing the doom of our way of life or the birth a nation, hence a community of unity.
Throughout my seminarian studies, I often raised this question: Are there ways contemporary Christians can exist while amplifying the positive impact of diversity and minimizing its negative effects?

So, the question is, “Is it possible to live life in unity with other human beings, loving them as your neighbor, just the way you love yourselves and your Lord and Savior?” 
If such an arrangement is possible, I believe it be the “Beloved Community,” a community with a shared vison of communal wholeness that was professed by social prophets of the past. If the “Beloved Community” is a courageous goal, then for me the problem is…how do we achieve it or at least understand it in today’s environment of selfishness, fear and greed?

I suggest there is such a location right here in Winston Salem, as the SHARE Cooperative of Winston Salem. We started out with one location in West Salem Shopping Center and we now have three (3).

1. the primary location at the SHARE Center is bustling with activity every day and is becoming the feeder for introductions and building authentic relationships.
2. the Depot is now open doing brisk business as an online fresh produce and staples stop…one can go online to our menu of products at www.harvestmarket.store, place an order and schedule a curbside pickup in just a moment…or a short period of time (smile)…we are still learning the ropes of grocery check-out and the like…don’t hold that against us. It is no different from any other new start-up business. The difference is that we are a “Cooperative,” a community of like-minded residents whose commitment to each other is unfailing; and finally,
3. the full-service market is now under construction with an open date somewhere in the first quarter of 2021…COVID has not helped!

All of our locations are being run by community folk who want a chance to prove themselves and live out their desire to make a difference in our community. We hired three regular employees and provide space for five more community volunteers from the Urban League to Wake Forest University.

Two of our new hires are the General Manager and the E-commerce Associate. You will have the opportunity to meet them this month at our Member Meetings, stay tuned about these details. Our food offerings are top-rated as well. We have the best organic and sustainable product-line in the area. You can purchase fresh fruits and vegetables, the latest in organic meats, and top it off with a line of the latest staple products.

If you have not tried us out, you are not fulfilling your commitment to support the building of a new way of being community, across diverse sectors of the community.

I close with one of our community leader’s challenges, “what we need is Radical Reorientation!”
Now this is where we need you, all 400 plus membership to come through even more directly. We need you to shop at “your Harvest Market Depot” at least once a week until we open the full-service market.

If there are products you do not see, then let us know and we will get them in the market for you. This way you can get used to patronizing the SHARE/Harvest Market community!  And do not forget to recruit new members. We need to double our membership base by the time the full-service market opens.

With that said, SHARE Coop family, we are in a dilemma of theological and moral proportions. We are facing the doom of our way of life or the birth a community of unity. If the “Beloved Community” is a courageous goal, then for me the problem is…how do we achieve it or at least approximate it in today’s environment of selfishness, fear and hate?

For us, the SHARE Cooperative of WS is the only answer, the only way! Join today and bless our community, in a transformative way…new life right here in Winston Salem!

Acts 2:44