Iowa City, Iowa — National Co+op Grocers (NCG) joins the global cooperative community in demonstrating that cooperatives have the power to make the world a better place. The business is on track to complete 8,000 acts of kindness by October 2018 as part of the national #Coops4Kindness campaign, coordinated by Cooperatives for a Better World.
Launched in 2017, #Coops4Kindness brings co-ops from diverse industries and communities together to complete 1 million acts of kindness by National Co-op Month this October. The campaign seeks to influence the direction of our society to become more equitable, humane and kind — an idea that is in-line with the principles that guide all co-ops, credit unions and mutuals.
“Kindness brings people together like nothing else.” said Howard Brodsky, Founder and Chairman of Cooperatives for a Better World. “We hope that #Coops4Kindness will not only promote doing acts of kindness but also help us to demonstrate how co-ops continuously strive to improve the quality of life for people in their communities. Concern for community is one of the international cooperative principles.”
As part of its pledge, NCG and its employees are practicing individual random acts of kindness as well as taking part in a number of local and global community-building programs and — along with thousands of other co-ops — reporting these activities to the #Coops4Kindness campaign.
“In the United States, there are more than 30,000 co-ops, employing 2.1 million people and featuring 120 million members – our opportunity to work collectively for the greater good is massive,” said Allie Mentzer, Advocacy Senior Manager, National Co+op Grocers. “Acts of kindness — whether large or small — show the value of cooperation as a way of life and shine a light on the positive impacts cooperatively owned businesses make each day.”
NCG will reach its pledged 8,000 acts by encouraging staff participation, offering paid time to use for volunteering and quantifying the benefits of new and ongoing projects like its Co+op Forest carbon offset program. In the spirit of #Coops4Kindness, the co-op is sending a care package to the school that serves the Peruvian community that helps manage Co+op Forest, with a set of ecofriendly colored pencils for each of the 70 students, plus flash drives and messenger bags for older students and teachers.
Anyone who is an employee or member of a co-op, credit union or mutual fund is welcome to make a personal pledge in the campaign through the #Coops4Kindness website and abundant inspiration is offered for everyone whether affiliated with a co-op or not.
About NCG
National Co+op Grocers (NCG), founded in 1999, is a business services cooperative for retail food co-ops located throughout the United States. NCG helps unify food co-ops in order to optimize operational and marketing resources, strengthen purchasing power and ultimately offer more value to natural food co-op owners and shoppers everywhere. Our 146 member and associate co-ops operate more than 200 storefronts in 37 states with combined annual sales of nearly $2.1 billion. NCG is a winner of the dotCoop Global Awards for Cooperative Excellence and a certified B Corp. Find a map of NCG member and associate co-ops. To learn more about co-ops, visit www.strongertogether.coop.
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Media inquiries may be directed to Eric Davis (eric@harvest-pr.com; 612-424-7545.)