In September I was selected as a winner of the “40 Under 40 competition” put on by the organic food industry publication Natural FoodsMerchandiser . These 40 winners, which also includes People’s Grocery’s ally Bryant Terry, are described as actors in the natural products industry who are all younger than 40 years old and “demonstrate a spirit of innovation, leadership and community involvement”. Click here to read my profile in the competition section of the August 2008 issue.

Van Jones, founder and President of Green for All, a national organization based in Oakland that is dedicated to “building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty”, has just made the New York Times best-seller list for his new book The Green Collar Economy. Van is the first black writer to make the bestseller list for an environmentally-themed book.

Here is an excerpt about People’s Grocery in The Green Collar Economy:

Back in Oakland, Brahm Ahmadi shares this core belief. He’s the
son of a Midwestern mother descended from generations of farmers in the Iowa-Missouri area and an Iranian father from merchant
families in Tehran and Tabriz. Ahmadi understands the deep significance of food
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A few months ago I attended the Organic Food Summit, an annual food industry conference put on by New Hope Natural Media attended mostly be organic food executives, entrepreneurs and media. This year’s conference was held in held at the St. Julien Inn and Spa in Boulder, CO. I participated on a panel entitled “Passing the Fork: Conversations with Organic Groundbreakers”. Other panelists were Patrice Gros from the Foundation Farm & Farming School in the Arkansas Ozarks and Fred Kirschenmann from the Leopold Institute at Iowa State University. The panel was focused on emerging and future trends that may impact the future organic food industry.

While Patrice and Fred focused on trends in sustainable agriculture
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The Washington Post reported on a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) study stating that almost a million more people participated in the government’s food stamp program between April and July, going to 28.08 million in April and to 29.05 million in July. The figure is the highest since November 2005, when Hurricanes Rita and Katrina drove the number to 29.8 million.

The study also said that the current national numbers probably stem from economic troubles from the early summer and spring and that there is often a delay of a few months after a crisis before people sign up for the program. If that’s the case, then we can expect to see even more people signing up as the fallout
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The Executive Director Job Announcement has been pulled from our website due to our great progress in identifying some very strong candidates. The post may come up again later should we not select any of these candidates.

However, I wanted to keep the audio/visual slide announcement available for those who may want to understand more about this leadership change.

Please click here to hear a message about the leadership change.

The Global Oneness Project produced a short video on People’s Grocery back in March 2008. Click here to see the video. Global Oneness’ video on People’s Grocery was recently selected for a film festival called the Reduction Festival.

Selected films are being voted on now until October 17 on the Reduction Festival website. Please take a moment to visit Reduction Festival, then click on Documentary, watch our video and vote for People’s Grocery! The winning films will be screened at an event in the UK.

Thank you to everyone who attended People’s Grocery’s 6th annual Harvesting Justice Fundraiser Brunch on Saturday, September 13. And a special thanks to all of the Table Captains for making the event a success.

We reached our goals for this fundraiser. With 400 attendees, we raised $44,000 in donations for this year and another $66,000 in multi-year pledges, for a total of $110,000. Eighteen people joined a multi-year giving circle and about 65% of attendees made a donation.

The event flowed well and raised the energy of People’s Grocery support. Eco-Chef, author and food justice thought leader Bryant Terry was a fantastic MC. Destiny Arts rocked an incredible opening performance. And best-seller food author and scholar more…

Here’s a brief testimony from one of the youth who was in our Growing Justice Youth Program this summer……

My name is Jennifer Copto. Am 15 years old. I was born in Mexico on 1993. I am a summer youth intern for People’s Grocery. People’s Grocery is a great program/job, and it’s different from all other programs/jobs. We grow all fresh organic fruits and vegetables because we are trying really hard to help the West Oakland Community. I’ve had so many good experiences in this first five weeks I’ve been working for P.G. For example, there was this time when two of our peers did an activity for us (Summer Youth Interns), called ‘What You’re Really Eating,’ which was basically about
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People’s Grocery is taking a very exciting step toward creating our grocery store. In order to expedite our store development and provide the leadership that a project of this scale requires, we’re going to hire a new Executive Director in the Fall so that I can turn my focus and leadership to developing the retail business and becoming the CEO of the new retail. This was a decision that was based on an assessment that 1) People’s Grocery is now a strong enough organization to successfully sustain a leadership change and 2) my involvement in the new startup business will be essential for its development and success. I’m personally very excited about the opportunity to tackle this project on a
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The following is an excerpt from a letter written by Rene La Chaux, who is an adviser and business partner to People’s Grocery. In this excerpt Mr. La Chaux tells the story of what West Oakland used to be like when he was a youth. You’ll note that the community was quite different from what it is today. People’s Grocery is working with Mr. La Chaux to publish a book about his life and stories of West Oakland.

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I am a long time resident of the community of West Oakland. I grew up in West Oakland, attended public schools in West Oakland and began my career in West Oakland. During my childhood and teenage years, West Oakland was bursting with small
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