A Carrot for the North End

Community Carrot Co-op enters into semi-finals of online start-up cash voting

by Miles Howe

K'jipuktuk (Halifax) - It's a big weekend for Norman Greenberg and the volunteer crew from the Community Carrot Co-op.

The Community Carrot Co-op, and with it the notion that the North End of Halifax can grow around, and contribute to, a people-run grocery store, is entered into the latest round of on-line voting from Aviva.

The insurance company provides start-up money to community initiatives, and Greenberg and company are hinging their hopes upon getting into the final 10 most popular initiatives, to whom Aviva will provide with the money to get their ideas off the ground. With the cash, the Community Carrot Co-op estimates that they might be up and running in the "food desert" of Gottingen Street within six months. Without it, it might be another year or two.

Greenberg, the volunteer chair of the board of directors, sees healthy food, and a healthy space, as a cornerstone for community health, and envisions something far more than a typical grocery store.

"As we go down the road there will also be a community space in the grocery store where we'll be able to have coffee and muffins and chessboards and checkers, and people can read newspapers and have community meetings, have a community kitchen," Greenberg told the Halifax Media Co-op.

"All of that will take place because the idea we're playing with here is that it's more than a grocery store. It's a community centre, and people will know each other by their name, and it'll be a fun place to go and everybody will see each other that they know every day, and it'll be a successful store because it will be serving the needs of that community."

Please enjoy the following interview with Norm Greenberg.

To vote for the Community Carrot Co-op, please visit the Aviva site.

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