Community Food Co-op

We’re happy to share that your Community Food Co-op Board of Directors has declared a patronage dividend for 2025!

If you earned a dividend, it’s already loaded to your membership account and waiting for you at the register. Just let your cashier know you’d like to use it toward your purchase.

Or, if you’d like to pay it forward, you can donate your dividend to the Co-op Farm Fund, which strengthens our local food system and increases access to healthy food by supporting local farms and sustainable agriculture.

This year, dividends range from $5 to $239, with an average dividend of about $25. If you didn’t receive a dividend this year, your eligible 2025 purchases may have been below the $754 threshold needed to generate our minimum $5 dividend. We set a $5 minimum because the cost of processing very small dividends exceeds the value of the dividend itself. View dividend FAQs at the link in our bio.

School starts Aug. 31, and with it, all those germs that get passed around the classroom. Prepare for the season with 25% off supplements — vitamins, probiotics, immune support, and more — from Aug. 26 to Sept. 1. If you’re not a Co-op member, this is a great time to join!

Here’s what Jenny, our Downtown Wellness Manager, recommends to tackle sniffle-season head on:

• WishGarden Herbs Kick-Ass Immune Activator
“This product combines nine different roots and herbs that act as a first line of defense when you feel a tickle coming on. Keep it in your pocket so you can take action and ward off a sore throat at a moment’s notice — it is taken without water. The handy travel-size bottle has a pump top, and we also sell a larger refill bottle to cut down on packaging waste.”⁠

• Source Naturals Wellness Formula
“I recommend taking this supplement daily to help build a good foundation for your immune system during heightened viral months. It delivers high-potency vitamin C, plus more than 30 other vitamins, minerals, and time-tested herbs for advanced immune support.”⁠

This sale is exclusive to Co-op members. Our membership fee is only $5 a year, with a one-time $90 buy-in that can be paid in $3 monthly increments. Become a member at the link below or next time you shop!

communityfood.coop/membership

*Single-use member discount, applied at checkout. While supplies last. Not applicable to special orders.

Aslan Brewing and the Downtown Co-op have been neighbors on North Forest Street for more than a decade. To commemorate our shared home and to celebrate Eat Local Month, we teamed up to create North Forest — a limited-edition pilsner brewed by Aslan one block from us. 
  
Get a first taste of this crisp, organic beer by joining us at Aslan Depot on Wednesday, Sept. 2. The celebration is free to attend, 21 and over. 
 
North Forest Beer Release Party 
Wednesday, Sept. 2 • 6 to 10 p.m. 
Music by ELK at 7 p.m. 
Aslan Depot • 1322 N. State St. 
 
For every Aslan beer sold at the party, $1 will be donated to the Co-op Farm Fund, which has provided $971,199 to 183 local food and farming projects since 2000 through grants, loans, scholarships, and emergency funds.

There are only four days left to apply for our 2027 Community Shopping Days program.

Community Shopping Days occurs the third Saturday of every month, when 2% of sales from both Co-op locations are donated to a featured organization.

Groups eligible to apply serve Whatcom County in one or more of these areas: food and sustainable agriculture; social justice, peace, and human rights; ecological issues; education; health and well-being; cooperative development; and community development.⁠

If you work with an organization that qualifies or know someone who does, we encourage you to share this opportunity. Find the application at the link below, and apply by Friday, August 28.

https://communityfood.coop/community-shopping-day-application/

Our Jar Library is back! Some of you may recall this classic Co-op program, which is now making a comeback in both our stores. What is it? Community-sourced, free jars for bulk shopping!

To start, we’re asking our shoppers to clear out your cabinets of all those unused glass jars by bringing them to our drop-off locations — found in the foyer of our Downtown store, and in the Bulk Department of our Cordata store.

We’ll then sanitize, seal, and set them out for Co-op shoppers to use. It’s an easy way to cut down on single-use plastic while you shop our Bulk Department.

Here’s what we can take:

✅ Wide-mouth glass jars with secure lids
✅ Must be clean and have no labels
❌ No cracks or chips

We’re excited to offer this program again — it’s such a mainstay of cooperative culture!

More than 720,000 acres of Washington land have burned this year. That’s approaching 2% of our total land area. It is already the third-worst Washington fire season of the last 20 years, and there are still almost two months left to go.

The Kaiser Canyon fire has burned almost 140,000 acres on the Colville Reservation, taking homes that families had lived in for generations. The Sinlahekin fire covers 150,000 acres of Okanogan County. The Chelan Hills fire was contained back in July, but it destroyed about 100 structures near Orondo — roughly three-quarters of the buildings in its path — and those families are still finding housing and replacing what they lost.

The Co-op has donated to the Colville Reservation’s Wildfire Relief & Recovery Fund, which provides direct assistance to individuals and families on the reservation.

Visit the link below to go to Community Foundation of North Central Washington’s wildfire relief page. This organization has worked with community partners on long-term wildfire recovery efforts for over 10 years. On their web page, you can donate directly to them, or to partner organizations working on immediate assistance for the Sinlahekin fire, Chelan Hills fire, and the fires on the Colville Reservation.

https://cfncw.org/wildfire-relief/

Every contribution we make, no matter how small, makes a difference in helping our region respond and rebuild from these tragedies.

Photos from .

Since 1992, Bellingham Farmers Market has provided a venue for local farmers and makers at Depot Market Square. This weekly gathering creates connections you won’t find at big box stores. It strengthens our sense of place, and our community.

The Farmers Market SNAP Market Match program enables broader access to healthy food by matching SNAP and EBT dollars spent at the market. The market is committed to offering unlimited matching for fresh fruit, veggies, seeds, and other edible plants, but state funding only covers a fraction of this program’s expenses.

Make your shopping list and come to the Co-op this Saturday, August 15, when 2% of all store sales will go to Bellingham Farmers Market through our Community Shopping Days program. These funds will be used to maintain a 100% match to stretch food budgets for low-income shoppers, which also increases sales for local farms based in Whatcom and Skagit counties.