Peace Community,
A question comes up often, sometimes quietly and 
sometimes out loud:
Why would a Black-led food co-op, rooted in Black food sovereignty and built to center the needs of our community, invite people of many cultures, races, and backgrounds into its membership?
The answer is simple and grounded in how co-ops work and how communities survive.
We are better together.
Detroit People’s Food Co-op was founded to address a real and historic gap. For generations, Black communities have faced disinvestment, poor food access, and little ownership in the systems that feed us. This co-op exists to change that. Centering Black leadership and Black community needs is not exclusion. It is correction.
At the same time, food does not exist in isolation. A grocery store sits at the crossroads of health, wages, housing, transportation, and dignity. What happens in one aisle often reflects what is happening across the city. Rising food costs, supply delays, staffing challenges, and access to fresh food affect us all.
Inviting a broad membership does not weaken our purpose. It strengthens it.
When people from different backgrounds choose to invest in a Black-led, community-owned grocery store, they are choosing values. They are choosing local ownership over extraction. They are choosing community health over convenience. They are choosing to stand behind a vision, not just shop in a building.
That choice matters every day in this store.
Membership dollars help keep shelves full. Engagement helps guide what we carry. Collective buying power helps us manage pricing. Shared skills help us solve problems. This is not abstract. It is how the lights stay on, how staff are paid, and how this store remains open to serve the community.
As Interim General Manager, I see clearly how connected we are. Sales affect payroll. Payroll affects morale. Morale affects service. Service affects whether people return. None of this works without active participation.
This co-op was built to be a lighthouse. A steady point of care, access, and ownership in a time when many systems feel unstable or unsafe. But a lighthouse only works if people tend it. If they show up. If they protect it.
So I am asking our Member/Owners to recommit.
Recommit to shopping here when you can.
Recommit to engaging, not just observing.
Recommit to speaking with care, patience, and accountability.
Recommit to remembering why this store was created in the first place.
Love is not passive. In a co-op, love looks like showing up, paying attention, and choosing community even when it is hard. Love, in this moment, is an act of resistance to that which is designed to divide us.
Our commitment remains firm. We will continue to center Black food sovereignty and Black leadership. We will continue to welcome those who understand that solidarity is shared responsibility. And we will continue to build, together, a store that reflects our values in practice, not just in words.
Next action: This month, choose one concrete way to support the co-op. Shop intentionally, settle your membership balance or start a membership if you have yet to join us, attend a meeting, or explain to one new person why this lighthouse exists.
See you soon!
In cooperation,
Lanay Gilbert-Williams
Interim General Manager
