Among the events this week were the announcement of the Win Your Fill contest winners and the celebration of women leading within the cooperatives. (Rachel May)

By Rachel May

Happy Co-op week

Co-op Week celebrates the community and commodities

Oct 23, 2021 | 8:00 AM

Co-op Week celebrations are wrapping up at Prairie North Co-op.

The week of Oct. 17 marked the annual co-op week. The organization shines a spotlight on itself as a whole during this time, as well as the commitment of its members in the community.

Terri Larsen, marketing and communications manager at Prairie North Co-op, said the goal for this week is to highlight all the Co-op does for the community and educate the members and the public.

“It’s not just our locations, but beyond celebrating our communities we wanted to celebrate our commodities,” Larsen told northeastNOW. “We’re fuel, we’re food, we’re agriculture, we’re home and building centre, there is so much to us and at the heart of it all is our people.”

Larsen said that the celebrations this year looked a little bit different than in previous years due to COVID.

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“We would have BBQ’s, cookies and cakes we would give away at our retails and COVID changed all of that.”

This week, they presented Win Your Fill, Fuel For A Year. Cecile Green of Melfort won a $2,000 gift card, while Jason Kirsch of St. Brieux won a $50 gift card.

Co-op also celebrated Women’s History Month this week. The national theme of women making history now led Larsen to interview women who lead Prairie North Co-ops.

“We took that opportunity each day to do Facebook live interviews with some of the amazing women who had worked for a long time in our cooperatives,” Larsen added.

For the women, the Facebook live events provided an opportunity to discuss their experiences working with Co-op.

Over the week, the following women were featured:

• Lorraine Wilk, 40 years with Melfort Food Store Deli;
• Susan Sunderland from the Naicam Agro Team and Sandy Smith from the Naicam Home Centre in support roles;
• Sharleen Leffler, C-store manager in Kelvington;
• Crystal Patterson, C-Store manager in Archerwill;
• Angela Blandin, file maintenance clerk and liquor manager in St. Brieux.

Although the week is winding down, Prairie North Co-op is sharing its dedication to helping the community.

“The pandemic has affected the supply of food and the prices of food, so we started posting recipes,” Larsen said. “Thrifty Thursdays are simple economical meals for a family of four.”

To help families in the community, the recipes are shared and posted on their Facebook page.

Visit the Prairie North Co-op Facebook page for more information and upcoming projects.

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Rachel.May@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @RachelMayFM