I feel as if I need to explain why I would be running for the Board. After all, most of you don’t know me, and I only moved to Fayetteville last year. So let me begin by saying why I want to serve the Co-op. I believe that people working together in service of a shared vision can change the world. I believe in the power of community, and I believe in making everyday choices as a citizen and as a consumer that count, that help create the change we wish to see (to crudely paraphrase Ghandi). That is why I am an owner, and that is why I want to help guide the Co-op toward achieving our shared vision of “a world strengthened by cooperative economics and driven by concern for the health and well-being of the planet and its inhabitants.”

My wife, Teresa, my boys, Woody and Fox, and I already feel like Fayetteville is home. We moved here when I accepted a new job in the Special Collections Department of the University of Arkansas Libraries. But it is the values we share with people here, which the Co-op exemplifies—devotion to community, commitment to more sustainable lifestyle choices, belief in the importance of natural and locally-produced food—that assures us that the move was the right choice for our family.

Although I am a new member of ONF, I have a great deal of experience with food Co-ops. Since first joining Life Grocery in Marietta, Georgia in 2002, I have taken advantage of co-ops for the majority of my food purchases and embraced the community co-ops provide everywhere I’ve lived. For four years before moving to Fayetteville, I served on the Board of Directors for the New Leaf Market Co-op in Tallahassee, Florida, including serving as President of the Board, 2010-2011. While on that Board I helped increase the Co-op’s promotion of local providers, led a committee to rewrite the Co-op’s Ends Policies, and helped guide the Co-op through a significant expansion.

I have participated in national co-op training through the Co-op Board Leadership Development (CBLD) organization and represented a co-op at two National Cooperative Grocer Association conferences. During my time as a Director and a Board leader, I had the opportunity to work closely with national cooperative consultants on many aspects of co-op governance, from small projects such as how to organize meetings to much larger undertakings such as rewriting foundational policies and actively engaging co-op ownership in long-range planning. In addition to co-op service, I have worked for state government and private industry as a technical writer, public relations specialist, administrator, and web content developer.

Ozark Natural Foods has strong ownership support and it does great work engaging the community outside the walls of the store. But I want everyone in this increasingly diverse region to identify with the store and the community it represents as strongly as I do. I would like the Co-op to expand its ownership with a plan for future growth directed toward meeting the needs and fulfilling the ideals of all the people in our area. The Co-op is not one-size fits all on purpose. But by foregrounding the important ideals the Co-op fosters (shared by many more people than are active owners) and making sure that everyone interested in natural foods and health supplies feels that they belong here, Ozark Natural Foods can serve the needs of Fayetteville and all of Northwest Arkansas even better than it does now. 

Thank you for considering me as a member of the Board of Directors of Ozark Natural Foods. I look forward to getting to know all of you better and working together to keep the Co-op strong.

-Joshua Youngblood, 2012 Board Candidate

Joshua Youngblood and his eldest son, Woody, are ‘taking the leap’ with their family’s move to Arkansas in this picture (below).