A yearslong, community-led effort to bring a food co-op to downtown St. Johnsbury has taken a leap forward.
The Caledonia Food Co-op’s board of directors announced on March 15 that it had exceeded a key fundraising goal and is now able to finalize the $2.2 million purchase of a former Walgreens building.
Katy Smith, a co-op board member and a teacher at St. Johnsbury Academy, grew up in the town of around 7,000.
“It really matters to me to see something happen that is going to be healthy for our community — literally, with the food that’s inside it, but also healthy for the downtown,” she said.
“This step of the building acquisition is huge,” Smith continued. “In the past, we’ve been dreaming, and now it’s going to happen.”
The effort, sometimes described as a “21st century barn-raising,” began six years ago among a group of residents who wanted to emulate a model embedded in communities across Vermont. St Johnsbury has no food co-op. The nearest are in Hardwick, Plainfield and across the Connecticut River in Littleton, New Hampshire.
Eric Skovsted, chair of the board of directors, has been a part of the effort since its start in 2018.
The board spent the first four years or so coming up with a vision, doing feasibility work, identifying possible sites and recruiting member-owners. As of March 19, it had sold 1,224 lifetime memberships at $100 apiece.
Finding a good site for the grocery store proved a challenge due to escalating construction costs and the town’s geographic layout, Skovsted said in an interview last week.
Then, in the early spring of 2023, the Walgreens store, located on Railroad St. — on the edge of one of St. Johnsbury’s main commercial streets and at a key intersection — closed its doors. A few months later, the Caledonia Food Co-op received a major grant from the town of St. Johnsbury for $150,000, which Skovsted said gave it enough capital to launch a quick fundraising effort.
Within a couple of weeks, the community raised $350,000 to secure the option to purchase the former Walgreens location that August. The other business interested in the space? A dollar store.
Then began the momentous task of raising the $2.2 million balance through donations, preferred stock sales, members loans and traditional loans. The goal was to raise $750,000 by March 15. At the end of that day, the group logged $814,823 — in addition to the $350,000 paid last fall.
“This total exceeds our most ambitious projections for the campaign and represents an extraordinary outpouring of support from this community,” said Jay Craven, co-op board member, filmmaker and founder of Catamount Arts, in a statement.
He called it “an inspiring example of people and families acting together to advance a shared vision — for expanded healthy food access; support for local farmers and producers; new decent paying jobs, and added strength for St. Johnsbury’s downtown revitalization.”
The purchase of the 12,000-square-foot space is expected to be finalized in April.
Now that the frantic eight months of fundraising are over, the board will turn to construction planning. Over the summer, Skovsted said, the co-op will announce new fundraising goals for the build-out of the space. He noted that it already has some key components: ample parking, loading docks and enough power for refrigeration and other equipment.
The Caledonia Food Cooperative will open its doors within two years, according to Skovsted.
While the co-op’s location will be within a half-mile of another grocery store — The White Market — Skovsted said that, according to the group’s market study, most of the co-op sales will come from products currently unavailable in town that residents have been traveling to other co-ops to purchase.
Skovsted also noted that the board is already having discussions with The White Market on how the two stores can work together to help expand the availability of local products.
Skovsted owns Joe’s Brook Farm with his wife in nearby Barnet, a 15-acre organic vegetable farm that grew alongside the Littleton Food Co-op. “Having the Littleton Food Co-op was huge for us,” he said. “It would be awesome for other farmers who are getting started to have the option of growing with a new co-op as well.”
For now, Skovsted said that it’s an amazing feeling that the community has come so far in the process of creating its own food cooperative. He urged others to join the effort.
“Everyone needs to find time in their life to help, especially if they have skills that benefit the co-op,” he said. “No one needs to do it all — we just need to share the work.”