Support our Local Vendors and our Future
UPDATE (Feb 13, 2019): Kokua Market Needs Your Support
For nearly fifty years Kokua Market has supported local agriculture, food security and healthy lifestyles and provided a space for folks to build community and cooperative spirit.
Kokua members and supporters have put together a plan to address and overcome recent financial issues. We are raising capital funds to relaunch the co-op. Enthusiasm is high, and so far the response to our long-term restructuring plan has been tremendous.
But, in the short term, we need a little more breathing space to get the restructuring plan in place. Your Go Fund Me donation right now is needed to keep the lights on, employees paid and the store open through March. If we can hold onto our lease for another 30 days, we have the chance to reboot successfully.
Please visit our Go Fund Me page and tell your friends to kōkua Kokua however they can. Every bit helps. Mahalo!
UPDATE (Feb 12 2019): We’ve raised more than $100K in member equity towards the reboot of Kokua. But we promised you none of that would be spent until we fully funded a viable relaunch. We are still working hard on securing the additional loans and grants needed to relaunch.
Meantime, we need to pay rent, our people, and keep the lights on this month. Survival funding is needed RIGHT NOW!
We’re hoping all Hawaii wants to see Kokua carry on. Please spread the SOS to your friends.
Save Our Store! Choose Cooperatives Over Corporations!
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Kokua Market Needs Your Support
Kokua Market Needs Your Support
For nearly fifty years Kokua Market has been a prototype for a way of doing business that puts people and the planet before profits. We have supported local agriculture, food security and healthy lifestyles as a
community space for people from near and far to come together and share a cooperative vision. Now that vision is threatened by a changing economic landscape in Hawaii - including additional natural foods chains entering Honolulu and the problems caused during and after construction of the student housing building next door.
We have launched a GoFundMe campaign, the initial goal of which was to modernize our store, better support our local suppliers, and lay the foundation for another fifty years of cooperation, community building
and Kokua. Unfortunately, our hard times have gotten harder, and we are facing the possibility of closure. Our priorities have shifted to repaying our local vendors and farmers.
If we make it through this period of crisis, we envision transitioning from a grocery store into something like an indoor farmer’s market,with an emphasis on freshly prepared foods and baked goods, local vendors, and exclusively local produce available, with some bulk options. As a small cooperative store, the natural foods grocery business has simply become too competitive to survive in! But we see our future in focusing more keenly on our values, which are to nourish our community in every way. We are loved by our community for the palpable sense of community around Kokua, for our support of local foodways, and for access to nourishing fresh foods— not our imported
food products!
To make our local vendors and farmers whole first and foremost, and to secondly make this vision possible, we still need lots of support.
Please visit the link below and support however you can. Every bit helps. Mahalo!