A Call to Action! Special Meeting, 4 pm, September 14th, St J Athenaeum.

Greetings from the Board of the nearly-there Caledonia Food Co-op!

The Caledonia Co-op announces a crucial meeting 4:00-5:00 pm on Sunday, September 14 at the Athenaeum in St. Johnsbury, upstairs at the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum (elevator from the ramp on the north side of the building is available). We’ll provide exciting news and updates, share architectural drawings, and lay out our critically important final strategy to bring this vital project to final fruition. These next steps toward our ultimate goal of a 2026 opening will be transformative!

For the past ten years, you and more than 1400 other families have dreamed of establishing a full-service Caledonia Food Co-op in downtown St. Johnsbury. We’ve enrolled paying members, elected board representatives, held hundreds of meetings, staged strawberry and chili festivals, opened our doors to community groups, rendered architect’s drawings, written grant proposals, engaged town leaders, developed a successful stock offering, launched Phase One and Phase Two fundraising campaigns - and we’ve purchased the right (historic) building to make all this happen, at 502 Railroad Street in St. Johnsbury

For the past sixteen months, we’ve stepped back from these visible front lines to dig deep into research and development for the co-op. During that time, we’ve brought on an experienced project manager, architect and consulting builder. We’ve worked with NCG, the leading national organization for co-op grocers, to refine our pro formas with hard-wired costs and projections for development and operation. 

We’ve also confirmed our plans with St. Johnsbury Academy for their building trades program to assist us in the build-out of our co-op, under the guidance of their experienced department heads - and our contractor. This helps us 1) minimize costs, 2) maximize community engagement and 3) lay the groundwork for future educational opportunities that will involve local schools.

We’ve experienced breakthroughs - and setbacks. It hasn’t always been easy. But our goals that have motivated all this work remain the same: to invigorate St. Johnsbury’s downtown, to support area farmers and food producers, to provide healthy food - and good jobs - to stimulate our local economy and enhance community assets in the vital food, recreation and culture realms.

With your participation and support, we’re confident we can complete our build-out of the 502 Railroad Street building, stock the shelves, hire the staff, fill the refrigeration units and open the doors to the Caledonia Food Co-op.  We’ll provide the details and take stock of where we now stand at the September 14th meeting, 4:00-5:00 pm.  Please join is for this important moment. We want to hear from you, share stories, bring you up to date - and jointly agree on a call to action that will get this done!

Thanks so much for your patience and support.

The Caledonia Food Co-op Board of Directors

Ann Helmus, Brandolyn Bradley, Christine James, James Sweeney, Jay Craven, Jim Levison, Karina Weiss, Kim Borsavage, Mark Clough, Peter Schweigert, Todd Vendituoli