Dear Central City Co-op,
     Several years ago, my husband and I were regular shoppers at your co-op.  We remembered that you donated unsold produce from the co-op to local food pantries.  In the past year, we have been displaced from our home due to flooding during Hurricane Ike and again in April of this year and are experiencing financial difficulties.  We have been receiving food from area ministries for ourselves and our four children, but our oldest son has an autism spectrum disorder and digestive disorder that makes him unable to eat most of the processed food we receive from food pantries.  Would you consider donating some of your extra produce to our family for our son’s needs?  We would be happy to provide documentation of our family’s circumstances, if that would be helpful.
   Thank you so much for your consideration.
   Sincerely,
 Familiar Face Co-op Shopper

    So co-op is running really tight right now, we are relocating, prices are going up, shopping is going down, more undocumented produce is walking off wah wah wah. And we tallied that co-op donated 12 grand in food last year. So what’s a family to do? Cause even Jenny over at the Nourished Kitchen is struggling http://nourishedkitchen.com/food-stamp-challenge-week-1/ so I came up with a list of solutions.

1) Volunteer at Co-op, http://www.centralcityco-op.com/volunteer.html Struggling getting to our main location? Contact a partner co-op and see if they need help. http://www.centralcityco-op.com/locations.html
2) Go over to Last Organic Outpost http://lastorganicoutpost.com/  and contact Marcella about becoming involved. They routinely need folks to pick and vend at local markets, and markets are popping up so fast its hard to keep up.
3) Plant a fruit tree, plan your own garden now, don’t have space? Look over at your neighbors yard or hang around with these folks http://www.houstonurbangardeners.org/Home.html . Have more than you can use? Get yourself to our Green Market Gardeners Corner.
4) Get Some Chix, start an egg co-op: Get a few girlies, feed them your scraps, voila! eggs. Intimidated? take a workshop. (full disclosure, this is authors own workshop) www.doitourselves.info

Mostly we need to not freak out, and keep planning ahead. So this is what I sent back to them, it doesn’t solve everyone’s challenges, but its what I could do for them.

Dear Familiar,
 Our system for donating end of day produce is not compatible for diff folks to come and pick up. Having said that, ll put you down for a large share every week until Jan 1st, 2010. It will be under my name, so sign out there. Pick up by 6:30, Wed. We can start next week.
We are all in it together doll,
Rowan

Got any better ideas? Send it to me.  Wanna help?  We need you for labor to get our new space ready.
info@centralcityco-op.org

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And even worse I can’t believe I am gonna share this picture with you, dear reader.

Soooooo, I had posted all proud that I had defeated the adrenal fatigue and the tell tale butt shelf, but apparently I still have some work to do. Here is my recipe for success: Eat as much raw, fermented, unpasteurized, alkalizing and adrenal glad nourishing foods as possible. Simple, eh?

So if you wanna stop drinking soda, great. If you don’t, eat more cultures. Or at least thats what I did. I am not YOUR doctor, just someone who figured out that my body works much less hard if I give it easy access nutrition, which is pretty much the opposite of the Standard American Diet (SAD) And my body could use a break, so I am gonna give it one.

When I feel tired, strung out and overwhelmed, I follow my above guidelines (recipe for success: Eat as much raw, fermented, unpasteurized, alkalizing and adrenal glad nourishing foods as possible), I rest more, and I do more Nia. 

And that’s what I know.

Rowan

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