Our Life #1

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

“The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change”

Heraclitus

 

Mattie Riemann put her tablet on the table and ran for her shoes. Her mom hollered down the stairs “Let’s go!” “Me and Jeff are going to ride our bikes to Armstrong’s Mom” Mattie responded. Ina immediately felt fear. “It is too dangerous for you two to ride to the farm on that road, Jeffy is only eight”.  Ina knew the bike lanes were safe, but she grew up in a different world where the car was king and the old feelings die hard. “Dad let us three weeks ago Mom, and it was OK?” Ina said no more and she heard the door close, heard Jeff and Mattie in the shed, and then gone.

Ina and Daniel Riemann live in Ingersoll Ontario. Daniel works at Cami Automotive and Ina takes care of the matters that their modern life requires. Ingersoll is nestled in Southern Ontario along the MacDonald Cartier Rapid Transit Line. The Thames River bisects Ingersoll and is one of the great focuses of this beautiful city.

Ina Riemann sits on the Rural Urban Food Connections Committee of the Ingersoll Co-op. Her Dad Richard had been a founding associate member of the Co-op in 2015. The Co-op started with one small butcher and cheese shop in the old Jack’s Department Store. The idea was to start businesses that are customer/employee owned  providing a built in clientele yet allowing anyone to shop. The members have a say in the business and certain types of members share in the profits. The proposed result would be to attract more Ingersoll Citizens to the centre of town. Along with the butcher and cheese place the Co-op proposed a 5% discount for Ingersoll citizens at other local shops upon proof of residency, the BIA approved and they moved forward.

Associate membership in the Co-op was thirty five dollars a year and this gave you a vote on who held board positions and major issues as they arose and a further 5% discount. Partner memberships allowed profit sharing. The Co-op was fairly static for 3 years but was meeting its mandate of revitalizing the main street. A couple of private businesses opened and thrived, filling two sad empty store fronts.

McKim’s Hardware came up for sale in late 2017 and the Co-op bid for the franchise and the second enterprise was on the books. A grocery store on the old Liquidation World site was the next and biggest enterprise yet. In 2019 a shoe store followed. The Rural Urban Food initiative was a perfect fit for the grocery store and the butcher shop and as the local farmers and the Co-op started to do business Ingersoll saw an influx of local food in the stores and individual co-op members began to work with the farmers to increase their access to healthy safe food.

In 2020 the Ingersoll Co-op, the town, and the Cami Automotive Unions sat down to ask the question “What happens if Cami closes?” They laid the groundwork for several pathways to survival.  In 2023 General Motors announced the Plant was to shut down. The Cami Committee sprang to action and entered into talks with GM on possible scenarios. GM closed their ears to the committee until they saw the Co-ops books and they started to take them seriously. After 18 months of talks Cami was to become an employee owned company, they successfully bid on the manufacture of the new Chevrolet Electro Mini. GM made money, Cami survived and history was made.

Ina Walked down to the end of Wonham Street and after a time the shuttle came by. Ina spied Mary Tuttle immediately and settled beside her. “Why are you on the Bell St. shuttle Mary?” inquired Ina. “Been over at the West Virginia Collection Centre this morning, we got a donation from London late last night and I was sorting and grading the clothes.” Ina looked out the window of the shuttle; Daniel had gone to West Virginia last fall to help out with the implementation of the first international Ingersoll Co-op venture. The Co-op working with local support agencies started a food sharing centre allowing those producing food to sell directly to the end consumers who could afford it and to donate surpluses to those who could not. The Ingersoll Co-op also shipped any local surpluses down to this depressed area. Daniel told a horrifying tale of hunger of the sort that Ina remembered from the save the children campaigns in Africa when she was a kid. Mining companies in West Virginia had gutted the environment and left the people to fend for themselves on this raped land.

After community field work in the morning Ina and several other urban people were going to can some tomato sauce. Ina preferred doing salsa but she was out voted this time. Canning and other preserving done by the community was a pleasurable and profitable pastime.

The shuttle passed Mattie and Jeff riding their bikes, the driver, Joe Stephenson gave them a friendly honk. Ina waved and Mattie smiled, Jeff looked a little tired, Ina worried.

Jeff and Mattie goofed and weeded the carrots for an hour or so and then wandered off with some friends to eat raspberries. Ina worked with the people at the canning bee for several hours, filled her basket with produce and canned tomatoes and hopped on the shuttle for home after collecting the kids and negotiating a return home time.

The 20^th anniversary of the Ingersoll Co-op was featured on the CBC Media One Blog in September and Ina took part. She did not talk about food security or the positive economic effect the Co-op had on Ingersoll, she didn’t mention the charity work of the Co-op. She did mention community and the kinship of common purpose. Ina related that she could not imagine Ingersoll without shared community, without the Co-op. Ina had planned to leave Ingersoll after college but the Co-op had started to change the community, Ina just felt too good at home to go.