We Supported Diversity and InclusionOver the past few years, GreenStar has undertaken significant food access and community partnership initiatives, which continued in 2013. A staff-driven committee meets on a bi-weekly basis to expand our Diversity and Inclusion initiatives and GreenStar’s management and Council representatives meet quarterly with community leaders to help ensure that we are on track. In 2013, we presented a summary of our efforts in these areas to fellow co-op representatives from around the country at the annual Consumer Cooperative Management Association (CCMA) conference, hoping to inspire and support similar efforts in other co-ops. Among the outcomes we shared is the statistic that, in just two years' time, the percent of our staff who identify themselves as non-white has grown from 3.6 to 12 percent. In June, GreenStar, GIAC, and Loaves & Fishes, in conjunction with local organization Understand to Overcome (U2O), held a film and discussion series around the three-part film series, “Race: The Power of an Illusion.” Viewings were held for GreenStar staff and managers as well, and U2O cooperated with organizations throughout Ithaca and Tompkins County to bring this important film to many audiences.

We Supported Our CommunityGreenStar supports community organizations large and small, and contributes to organizations that support co-ops in other communities as well. In 2013, we donated about $5,725 in gift cards, products, gift baskets, or food to over 45 community organizations, including New Roots Charter School, Finger Lakes Cleanwaters Initiative, NOFA-NY, the Food Bank of the Southern Tier, Farm Sanctuary, Habitat for Humanity, and many more. We donated $207 to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Celebration Committee; $10,000 to support our non-profit affiliate GreenStar Community Projects and their work to further Food Justice in our community; and $1,000 to the Howard Bowers Fund, which supports the growth and development of consumer co-ops. We donated $1,500 to the Dorothy Cotton Institute, and $1,000 to the Ithaca Children’s Garden to support their new outdoor kitchen and kick off a partnership that you’ll be hearing more about in months ahead. Our members chipped in their own money at the registers, too, donating $3,800 to the Ithaca Health Alliance during their November fundraising drive. We are currently raising money at the registers for the Cooperative Development Fund's Disaster Recovery Fund, which will be used to combat the destruction caused in the Philippines by Typhoon Haiyan. All totaled, GreenStar donated $30,777 during 2013, not including funds contributed directly by shoppers. We donated our time, too, sending member-worker volunteers to staff the Southside Community Center’s Juneteenth Festival and GIAC’s annual festival.

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We Made Our Voices Heard

In January, we sponsored one of several buses to Albany for anti-fracking protests at the Governor’s annual State of the State address (the lucky folks on the GreenStar bus received snacks courtesy of Tierra Farm and Equal Exchange). Over 2,000 concerned citizens (including Pete Seeger, Natalie Merchant, and Reverend Billy!) rallied to urge Governor Cuomo to be national leader on climate change by banning fracking in New York. The next month, we sponsored buses down to the climate rally in Washington, DC. GreenStar’s One-Minute Activist program, which allows member-owners to easily take action on environmental or social-justice issues, generated letters to Gov. Cuomo in support of GMO labeling, and another round of letters for the Tompkins County Worker's Center encouraging the County legislature to adopt a living wage for Tompkins County employees. We continue to use our Facebook page to let our over 3,000 fans know about local and regional activist opportunities regarding fracking, social justice, and other issues.

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We SupportedLocal Business

GreenStar is constantly looking for ways to strengthen local businesses and bolster our local economy. We give premium space in the stores to local products, and feature local suppliers in the pages of GreenLeaf. We rent affordable space in our warehouse to local farmers and vendors, and in the early months of 2013 we hosted the Winter Ithaca Farmer’s Market in The Space @ GreenStar. (Look for the Farmer’s Market to return on Saturdays beginning this month and running through March.) Sadly, 2013 saw the loss of Cayuga Pure Organics’s “Beanery” processing and storage facility in Brooktondale, NY. We collected donations to help them rebuild, and threw a benefit party with local musicians and great food to raise even more funds, collecting a total of $3,690.

GreenStar’s

We Celebrated 12 Days of Earth Day Following 2012’s 12 Days of Earth Day success, we revived the days-long celebration, inviting local

sustainability organizations to table in our entryway, offering green reuse activities, holding a reusable bag drive, and organizing a volunteer day at the Veterans’ Sanctuary farm in Trumansburg. In 2013 we raffled off

daily prizes designed to foster reuse and sustainability, like locally made coffee mugs and reusable bags.

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We Promoted Local ArtEach month, GreenStar Oasis serves as a gallery space for

local artists. The West-End store features art created by local children. In 2013, we added paintings by the GIAC Urban Art

Club to our outdoor eating area, where they continue to enliven the space for our outdoor diners. Now, our buildings are

proudly wearing art on the outside, too: in April we invited street artists in town for the Get Up State live mural project to

decorate the alley-side of our warehouse building, and in October, Brazilian muralist Eder Muniz decorated the side of

our new Classrooms @ GreenStar building.

We Promoted Food Justice Our FLOWER (Fresh Local Organic Within Everybody’s Reach) program offers

a 15 percent low-income discount. We currently have 411 participants. September 2013 also brought the third annual

GreenStar Community Projects Food Justice Summit, which this time featured a

“Farm-a-Thon” in addition to the popular street fair, with inspiring speaker Majora Carter of Sustainable South Bronx, local organic food,

youth activities, vendors, and music. The Summit raised awareness and cash — $3,009 was raised

at the registers and matched by a donation from GreenStar, and the Farm-a-Thon brought in approximately $10,000 from sponsors!

Running a co-op can’t be all work and no play, so we like to have fun and make some fun for our members, too. We joined forces with the Downtown Ithaca Alliance Summer

Concert Series once again to throw an End-of-Summer-Bash on the Commons in August with local faves Big Mean Sound Machine (fittingly, half the band members work at GreenStar). We also hosted El Rumbon! at our Spring Member Meeting, and in May,

Mosaic Foundation provided the beat for our Dance Party in the Parking Lot. For the fifth year in a row, we celebrated our workers with a Labor Day Ice Cream Social, and the kids

got their own fun Wizard of Oz–themed party on Halloween.

We Reached Out to Our Community

GreenStar’s beloved smoothie bike, a refurbished RIBS bicycle outfitted with a blender on the back, continues to serve appreciative audiences at events all over town. In

2013, with or without the smoothie bike, GreenStar participated in a slew of community events, including the

Cornell Farmers Market, the GIAC Festival, the Family Reading Partnership’s Kids’ Bookfest, Juneteenth, Streets

Alive, the Cornell Green Fair, the Ithaca Festival Parade, First People’s Festival, Taste of the Nation, Bike to Work or School

Day, and the Great Downtown Ithaca Chili Cook-Off. We helped the Ithaca Children’s Garden kick off their new

outdoor kitchen, and will collaborate with them on many more projects in 2014 (stay tuned!).

We Educated Our ShoppersIn 2013, GreenStar teamed up with product-rating service HowGood to offer shoppers

at-a-glance info on how their favorite products stack up. A shelf tag indicates the product’s rating (from 0, “not good,” to 3, “excellent”) with a simple symbol. Smartphone

owners can use the HowGood app, also available at an in-store kiosk, to access a database of more than 100,000 products, along with all the details of their ratings.

We also recently joined the Non-GMO Project. GreenStar supports labeling of GMO's, but companies aren’t currently required to label GMO ingredients. The Non-GMO label on the

shelves (and on product packages) can help our shoppers make informed buying decisions.

When Ithacans were asked to name their go-to spot for “Best Healthy Take-out” during the Ithaca Times annual “Best of Ithaca”

contest, they chose GreenStar!2013

We Won “Best Healthy Take-out”

We Partied!

FOOD JUSTICE

tA k E b A c K y O u R f O o D !

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