I have access to food that gets wasted regularly. How can I get it to ReDelicious?
If you can drop food off on Sundays at the farm, we always welcome drop-in donations of good food that needs to get eaten. Do not just drop stuff off without communicating to someone! The farm is our gracious host and we respect our relationship by maintaining orderly operations.
Talk to folks there, tell people what it is, and make sure someone is able to go around offering it to or giving out samples (if ready to eat) to community members.
We're always open to new partnerships for receiving food more regularly by introducing it into our weekly rhythm, although we’ll have to see if there is capacity to make a commitment. Please get in contact with us and let's try to make it work: redeliciouscoop@gmail.com.
Why are we a cooperative, not a nonprofit?
We believe in economic democracy—having workers own and control a business together.
The money we make through grants, donations, and monthly supporters goes back into labor, ingredients, collectively-owned assets, and accessible programming. Our co-op structure lets us build sustainable and circular economies rooted in collective wealth. We also feel burned by the “nonprofit industrial complex” and want to be able to be political, which would have big limitations as a 501c3.
Where are we going from here?
We hope to expand and continue our role as mycelium, providing a nourishing grounds to the movements that make this city more joyful. We dream about opening a public kitchen lab and cafe + community, art, and urban ag space in DC, maybe in a collaboration with 6 other groups who will each use the space for their project on the other days of the week. We’ve even talked about collectively buying land together as a community. More to come…
Some of the smaller dreams we’re stewing on:
- Buying a e-cargo-bike to be able to pop-up with food where people are in Edgewood and other communities in need
- Incubating and building infrastructure for small food businesses so chefs and workers in our community can support themselves and feed the people, including buying more industrial kitchen equipment and sharing administrative and subscription costs
- Advocacy campaigns to get more money in the city’s budget for cooperative economic development (aka Community Wealth Building), as well as food waste reduction, composting, and shared food lab infrastructure
- Political campaigns that subvert the normal ego-centered dynamic and allow a community to run for office together, as a team
How do I become a worker?
You do not have to be a worker-owner of ReDelicious to participate in the project, take food, or help out on Sundays. Everyone is welcome to participate, and most of our events and workshops are free or offered on a sliding scale.
If you’d like to take on the legal obligations of stewarding this organization and becoming a worker, the first step is usually to start meeting other workers face-to-face on Sundays and sharing your interest! If you can hardly ever make it to Sunday ReDelicious, feel free to reach out via email: redeliciouscoop@gmail.com.
We’re starting to open up our Circles to volunteer leaders (Circles are autonomous working groups that make decisions for the group within their area of responsibility, as part of a governance system called Sociocracy). Feel free to ask a worker about getting involved in a Circle’s work to get connected to the right person to talk to and learn the process for being added to that Circle, including what potential open projects or ideas need support right now.
“Worker”ship tends to grow slowly, imperfectly, and organically from shared work, trust, and aligning action with our values — we make nominations two times a year.