"I’ve been an owner since the first year I came back to Central Illinois to do farming which was four years ago. For me, becoming an owner, it’s being a part as much as possible in the local food system. I think that being a part-owner of Common Ground or Green Top gives power to our community to make good food choices and really makes the small scale farming a lot more viable for more people. The big food grocers don’t really want to deal with us growers that can really only get them 100-200lbs a week of product. Common Ground will because they want to support local. They’re willing to put in the extra effort to work with someone who can only supply small amount of food each week. So it really opens up a lot of doors. I think Champaign Urbana, without Common Ground, would be a completely different place in the food scene and not only with where you can buy your groceries but it would probably change how accessible locally grown food is in restaurants and places like that. There are probably some restaurants that come in to grab two bunches of kale that they run short on and that opens the door to introducing local foods into restaurants. It's a good model to be fully invested in good food. "
PHOTO CREDIT: JP GOGUEN, owner #12769