Corrections to 'Economic downturn'

To the Editor:

I am writing this letter to make corrections to the article "Economic downturn affects Main Street," which appeared in the October 27 Advertiser Democrat.

It is not necessarily easy, when looking at today's economy, to walk the fine line between discouragement and a realistic assessment of where we are and how we might build the necessary resilience to move confidently into the future. It may be even more difficult to record someone else's exact position on that fine line.

When Meredith Potter interviewed me for the article, I found her questions interesting and thought-provoking. Our conversation was lively. In hindsight, I realize that at times, the words may have been flowing faster than her pen. This is probably why the article lists a series of events as though they all occurred in 2011. They would have daunted anyone, and would have daunted me if they had all occurred this year. Luckily we replaced our crashed computers in 2006, and Young Brothers did an excellent re-design and repair of our leaking roof in 2009. I gave that information (and the fact that we painted the front of our historic building) as examples of how Fare Share has been able to care for its infrastructure in spite of the economic downturn.

I do believe our entire community, and communities like it, is "in for some bumps" if the economy doesn't improve. Far from believing the only thing we can do about it is to cut expenses, though, I believe we can all benefit from looking at what a post-peak oil future might look like, and beginning now to put into place the initiatives that will help create a better life for all of us. Meredith asked if we were considering expansions, and I understood from her explanation that she meant opening other stores. I replied, as the article stated, that this is not the time to be thinking about that, but that we are actively working on other projects, such as a website with on-line ordering capacity, now in its pre-launch phase. Fare Share membership has endorsed the idea of a sliding scale restaurant based on the model used by One World, Everybody Eats. We are exploring funding and technical assistant options for that, as well as for a mobile market, among other things.

People who know me, know I am not a person who says "probably nothing will change." Fare Share is also not the kind of organization that assumes nothing will change. Co-op stores like Fare Share were the front runners in making organic and bulk foods readily available to the general public. We are now the front runners in the movement toward local food. We assume change. And we help make it happen.

Claire Gelinas

General Manager

Fare Share Co-op

Norway