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Cooperative Disaster Relief Fund

The Cooperative Disaster Relief Fund (CDRF) was started in 1997 in response to the tremendous flooding of the Red River Valley of the North that damaged and destroyed many homes and businesses.  Among those affected was the Amazing Grains food cooperative in Grand Forks, N.D., which sustained extensive damage.  Fortunately for the folks at Amazing Grains, cooperators from around the country gathered for the annual Consumer Cooperative Managers Association (CCMA) conference shortly after the great flood.  A lunchtime appeal was made for assistance and co-ops from all around the country raised more than $8,000 for the Grand Forks store in less than three minutes. A later appeal by mail more than doubled that figure, and the funds raised allowed the co-op to rebuild and rise from the disaster better and stronger than before. Luckily for Amazing Grains, the CCMA conference was held right after the worst of the floods and many people attending the conference were familiar with the disaster through the extensive news coverage of the event.

Cooperators were able to respond quickly to an emergency situation.  Recognizing that not every victim of natural disaster would be quite so fortunate in terms of timing and television coverage, the CDRF was established by the cooperative community as a permanent ongoing fund to be used solely for disaster relief for any food cooperative in need at any time. In 2008, we found renewed interest in the CDRF after early summer floods devastated parts of Iowa, Wisconsin and other states. And, because of the widespread damage, the CDRF was expanded to offer help to organic or sustainable family farmers in addition to food cooperatives.

Your financial assistance is needed to aid cooperatives affected by the destruciton hand of mother nature.

At this time Northcountry and the Cooperative Grocers' Information Network of the National Cooperative Grocers Assoiation are taking donations for the Cooperative Distater Relief Fund.

Please make checks payable to:
Northcountry – Co-op Disaster Relief
219 Main Street SE, Suite 500
Minneapolis, MN.  55414