The Co-op Wars Documentary Film Screening — Lawrence Arts Center 940 New Hampshire, Friday Sept. 27
The Co-op Wars Documentary Film Screening — Lawrence Arts Center 940 New Hampshire, Friday Sept. 27
Join us for a film screening of The Co-op Wars, a documentary exploring the political and economic organizing efforts of a passionate group of people building an alternative food economy in Minneapolis in the 1970s — the same moment our own grocery co-op was forming. The Co-op Wars tells the story of the community who tried to build an alternative to corporate capitalism, the violent struggle that almost tore them apart, and their eventual success in ways they never foresaw.
Screening is at the Lawrence Arts Center main stage at 940 New Hampshire.
Doors open at 6:00 for refreshments, and the film begins at 6:30.
Panel discussion to follow with Erica Blair, Rural Grocery Initiative; Tom Buller, Kansas Rural Center; Mark Sprague, The Merc Co+op Board Member, and facilitated by Rita York Hennecke, The Merc Co+op General Manager.
Event ends at 8:00 p.m.
As The Merc Co+op celebrates our 50th anniversary, we invite you to reflect on our collective and cooperative history. Examine the often conflicting viewpoints within social movements and counter-culture, and the challenges faced even between folks that are motivated by the same ends.
HEAD TO THE CART IN THE UPPER RIGHT CORNER OF YOUR SCREEN TO CHECK OUT AND COMPLETE REGISTRATION. THE EVENT IS FREE TO ATTEND
Panelists
Erica Blair
Erica is an Extension Specialist with K-State Research and Extension and a Program Manager for both the Rural Grocery Initiative and Kansas Healthy Food Initiative. In this role, she provides support to communities and grocers on a range of topics, including grocery ownership models, financial resources, transition planning, etc. Erica earned her B.F.A. in Intermedia and Certificate in Sustainability from the University of Iowa, and her M.S. in Environmental Policy from the University of Michigan.
Tom Buller
Tom is currently the Executive Director of the Kansas Rural Center. He studied geography and rural development at the University of Kansas as an undergraduate and the University of Minnesota as a graduate student, before returning to Kansas with his family to start their own farm. For many years Tom and his family operated Buller Family Farm, a part of Common Harvest Farms, growing certified organic vegetables and fruit in the Lawrence area. Along the way he has also held a variety of other roles in the food system- stocking shelves at the Merc, coordinating the Lawrence Farmers’ Market, helping to start the KC Food Hub, and working as a horticulture extension agent for K-State Research and Extension.
Mark Sprague
Mark is a life-long resident of Northeast Kansas, and a third generation Jayhawk.
Mark worked a long time with adolescent youth in psychiatric and group home settings, was a roofer/carpenter, worked on a reservation managing programs and construction projects. He also worked at a farmer owned co-op, unloading grain at an elevator his grandfather once managed during the depression. Mark has been a director on the board of The Merc Co+op, in Lawrence, KS, since 2010, and he has been shopping there since it opened 50 years ago. “It has been an important part of our life, as the only place we could get organic products, supports local producers and is invested in our community.”
Rita York Hennecke, Facilitator
Rita has over two decades of experience in the food and hospitality industry. She is the longest-standing GM in the co-op's history and continues to be a champion for the cooperative business model as a way to meet people's economic, cultural and social needs while adding wealth to communities. Under her leadership, the co-op has taken great strides to become more inclusive through product selection, price, customer service and work culture. Rita led the co-op's 2015 rebrand and renovation, piloting National Cooperative Grocers' (NCG) cobranding program. She spearheaded the co-op joining Associated Wholesale Grocers (AWG), a purchasing cooperative, that provides competitively-priced mainstream and private label grocery products.