Five Questions With: Philip Trevvett

Philip Trevvett, vice chairman of the Urban Greens Food Co-op for the past three years, has been engaged with the not-for-profit organization for more than five years.
Philip Trevvett, vice chairman of the Urban Greens Food Co-op for the past three years, has been engaged with the not-for-profit organization for more than five years.

Philip Trevvett, vice chairman of the Urban Greens Food Co-op for the past three years, has been engaged with the not-for-profit organization for more than five years. On the board for four years, he has been heavily involved in community outreach and food-access strategy, financial planning and site development. He also has represented Urban Greens in many capacities across Rhode Island and New England, from food policy panel discussions to neighborhood forums hosted by local community groups, to regional cooperative conferences. Here he discusses the organization’s latest developments.

PBN: As vice chairman, what are your goals and priorities for the organization?
TREVVETT:
The biggest priority for Urban Greens Food Co-op is to increase access to healthy food options in Providence, and especially in neighborhoods which currently have limited access to groceries, such as the West End and South Providence.
Beyond simply opening a community-owned grocery store, the co-op must develop programming focused on affordability of healthy, fresh foods, and health and education about their benefits and use. Urban Greens Food Co-op will be a resource where community members and consumers can find fresh and healthy food options, learn about healthy cooking and nutrition through classes, be given clear and transparent information about their food, and find choices which represent the numerous cultural food heritages present in west and South Providence.
Building this resource will also require continued work on some of our more immediate goals, such as establishing strong relationships with community organizations and local residents, and working to build and diversify our membership, ensuring we are creating a welcoming space for all. Co-op membership can be a real form of empowerment at the community level: Becoming a member means purchasing an ownership stake. As a community-owned entity, the more broad and diverse the base of member-owners who have a voice, the more responsive the co-op can be to community needs.

PBN: As we enter 2016, what makes food access important, and how does the Urban Greens Food Co-op aim to facilitate it?
TREVVETT:
Access to healthy and affordable food can have a huge impact of the life and health of Providence residents. Across the country, areas lacking grocery stores (“food deserts”) show much higher prevalence of chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes. In areas like these, citizens often rely on small corner stores to purchase most of their groceries: stores that offer limited produce and fresh goods, and also charge significant markups because of the low volume. This means that residents in food deserts who may also be on fixed or low incomes have to contend with both less healthy options and higher potential markups.
Health and nutrition classes also play a major role in food access. Being informed about the health impacts of the food we eat and about how to cook real, healthy food on a budget can empower consumers and help them identify healthy food choices.
Urban Greens Food Co-op will be located in an area where no grocery store currently exists, increasing access at a basic level from day one. It will also dedicate a significant portion of the store to produce and fresh goods.
In addition, the co-op will work to make health and nutrition information a key resource available to the public both through the actual co-op, and in the form of health and nutrition classes in the co-op’s community space. Urban Greens Food Co-op has partnered with the Rhode Island Community Food Bank in planning these classes, following a program they have used to help low-income residents to extend their budget while preparing healthier meals.
Urban Greens has a low-income membership share available, and will also implement the “Co-op Basics” program used by food co-ops across the country to make key staple goods more affordable by selling them at cost, and transferring markups elsewhere in the store.

PBN: The co-op has selected the site of the former Louttit Laundry building at 93 Cranston St. to locate a grocery store emphasizing natural and local foods. Why this neighborhood? What is your time frame for opening the grocery store?
TREVVETT:
The location that Urban Greens has identified is situated where three highly diverse neighborhoods – none of which have a full-scale/full-service grocery store – come together: Federal Hill, the West End and Upper South Providence. This location will be easy for residents from all three of these neighborhoods to access. It can be reached by four bus lines, and is conveniently located just off of Interstate 95 and routes 6 and 10, with ample parking for those coming from farther afield.
We will be working with a developer on this location, which will become a mixed-use, commercial and residential space, with more than 30 residential units, and Urban Greens Food Co-op as the anchor tenant. The developer’s expectation is to break ground this summer, from which point we expect build-out to take a year. We plan to open by mid-2017.

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PBN: You have more than 600 members. How do you organize effectively, and what core number are truly active?
TREVVETT:
As an all-volunteer project, it takes significant effort from our dedicated board members to build a truly engaged member-owner base.
There are monthly board meetings, as well as numerous committee and task force meetings throughout the month, which represent where the bulk of the operational planning and decision-making takes place. The co-op holds an annual meeting, which is where larger discussions and decisions requiring a vote by the membership are made, and where board elections take place. Throughout the year, the board provides regular updates and solicits feedback from the membership through electronic communications, social media and surveys.
More than 650 member-owners have purchased ownership stakes to support this project. Of those, as many as 75 are engaged in some regular monthly activity, from our volunteer board members, to using and volunteering for our online buying club, to helping with information tables at farmers markets, or helping plan and set up larger events, such as the site announcement last month (attended by about 200 people).
Many more members (and nonmembers) attend the events the co-op holds throughout the year: everything from fundraisers, to casual member meet-and-greets, to member-led workshops and skill-sharing class, to cooking-demos at local restaurants, to food/nutrition sessions at local schools and community centers.

PBN: How many members does the organization aspire to have, and what are the benefits for the group as a whole in expanding?
TREVVETT:
By the time the store opens in 2017, we expect to have more than 1,000 member-owners.
Continuing to expand our membership is a priority for the co-op, as it results in several benefits. Member-ownership provides the initial equity needed to get the project off the ground. While the overall financing of the project of course involves more capital, and the store will be self-sustaining once operational, the initial investment from founding member-owners is what generates the seed money that has gotten the project this far, and will continue to move it forward.
Just as important, our focus on expanding and diversifying membership will help ensure we are representing all of the neighborhoods surrounding the store, and empowering local residents. As a community-owned store, it is important that our ownership reflects the diversity of our surrounding communities.
The West End and upper South Providence are two of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in the city, and it’s important that Urban Greens Food Co-op is a resource for those communities, as well as for the city and state as a whole. That means not just welcoming all residents into the store, but promoting membership, and encouraging people of color and low-income residents to have an ownership stake and a direct voice in the co-op.

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