Our Board is the functionary body that makes executive decisions about the future of our co-operative, tracks the progress of the store through our General Manager, and is democratically-elected by our membership every year. Let’s learn more about the awesome people that comprise our Board. Our third interview is with Board Member Mary Arimond!
Chloe: How would you introduce yourself?
Mary: My name is Mary Arimond, and I live here in Takoma Park — just a few blocks away from the Co-op. I’ve been a Co-op Member for 25 years, basically ever since we moved here. When I retired, I started looking around for places where I could get involved. That’s how I wound up on the Co-op’s Board of Representatives.
C: What did you do before you retired? What was your thing?
M: Yeah, I did a lot of things. (laughs) For most of my career I worked as a nutritionist in research settings, so I wasn’t a clinical nutritionist — I wasn’t working with patients, or advising people what to eat or anything like that. I do know a lot about healthy diets, but I was working more doing policy-relevant research primarily related to maternal, infant and young child nutrition. This was in developing countries and lower-income countries. I also worked in this country, I directed a county WIC program for some time. Early in my career.
C: (intrigued) Seriously?
M: Yeah! For people who aren’t familiar with WIC, that’s a federal program that provides food to pregnant women, women when they’re breast-feeding, and also infants and young children. I worked at county-level for that program, but most of my career was focused more overseas. I did live and work in some countries over the years.
C: The Co-op accepts SNAP (formerly known as food stamps).
M: One of the things I love about the Co-op is that we’re partnered with Crossroads Community Food Network and have a grant so people on SNAP can double-up their purchase (SNAP users get 50% off all produce in the Co-op). That’s one of the many things I love about the Co-op.
C: Question two is, “What do you do and why do you do it?” But you’re retired.
M: Yeah, I’m retired. What I do, though…I believe that I’m not going to change the world except for in very small ways. I’m responsible to try and do small things. Actually, I volunteer for Small Things Matter. (both laugh) I also volunteer with CASA and the League of Women Voters. When I retired, I was interested in finding things that I could do. My career was hopefully useful.
C: When did you retire?
M: I kind of petered out. I was self-employed for the last few years. The last project I worked on ended sometime last year, but I was already working at a much less full-time level. I quit working full time about 3 years ago.
C: I’ve been organizing with some people in their 60’s and 70’s and they have no interest in retiring. It’s very odd to me, I didn’t know about this subgenre of American laborers.
M: A lot of people still want to keep going. A lot of my colleagues, particularly in academia, go on until they’re 70 or 80. That’s a choice, right? I had a lot of other things I wanted to do.
C: Like what?
M: Play music! Study a language! Garden! Cook! Be a good neighbor! I enjoy doing a lot of things. I particularly enjoy being outside and hiking. One of the wonderful things about retirement is on a beautiful day like today — you can just be outside all day. And nobody is going to tell you that you need to go sit at a desk.
C: Where do you live? And what’s your relationship to Takoma Park?
M: I’m right here in Takoma Park, in the neighborhood in the middle of the schools and the Metro. It’s very central, I can walk to everything. Takoma Park was the place we wanted to live when we moved to the DC area, and that was partly because we had friends here and partly for the same reasons everyone else wants to live here. It’s very green and community-minded and progressive and diverse. These are probably all the same reasons anyone moves to Takoma Park. Of course, Takoma Park is changing.
C: That’s what everyone has said, for each of these interviews.
M: I mean, it’s much less affordable than it used to be.
C: That’s the big one.
M: Yeah, it’s huge.
C: I think that factor is responsible for so many of the positive qualities you just listed becoming somehow different…what diversity means in this city has changed a lot, due to affordability. I mean, it’s still diverse, but relative to what? And in what way?
M: If you look at the elementary schools, one of the reasons that they seem to maintain diversity is because Takoma Park has a lot of rent-controlled housing. We have income diversity in this city, as well as a bunch of other different kinds of diversity. A lot of the housing is simply unaffordable, though. Middle income housing seems to have been cut out completely.
C: What was your first experience at the Co-op?
M: This Co-op?
C: What was your first experience at a co-op?
M: I’ve been a co-oper since 1978. I’ve known about the co-op movement, and have been involved with co-ops in many of the places I’ve lived for almost 50 years. The first co-op I joined was at my undergraduate institution, which was Oberlin College. It has a lot of ‘eating co-ops’, which are really fun. An ‘eating co-op’ is an alternative to dining halls. There were about 100 of us, and we did everything. We bought our food, we sourced it, we cooked it, we processed it, we cleaned it up. This type of eating was cheaper than the dining halls, which was really important to me. It was also a lot of fun. The ‘eating co-op’ was where I learned to cook and also where I learned to cook for the masses…you know, it’s different cooking for 100 people. That was my first co-op. Everywhere that I’ve moved where there was a co-op, I would join the co-op. When we moved to Takoma Park, I joined TPSS. It was kind of a no-brainer.
C: Did it take you — now I’m curious about this, because Bob had discussed it in his interview. Did you have like, a growth curve with the store? Like, you originally found something to be off-putting or strange about it at first? I’m assuming no, because your exposure to co-ops started in a more radical food setting than even this.
M: Yeah, this was easy for me. (laughs) I like a lot of fruits and vegetables, I love the bulk aisle, I love minimal packaging…I will say when I first moved here, I was disappointed the first time I walked into this Co-op. It’s much better now, but it hard a very small and not very excellent produce section. Fruits and vegetables are the center of what I eat, and it just was not that great here. I think partly, also, the facility wasn’t all that great at the time, so fresh things wouldn’t stay fresh as well. Unlike the wonderful facility we have now! I will say, improvements to the quality and variety of produce happened some time ago. It has gradually gotten better, and is now much better than the selection when we first moved here.
C: Are you a vegetarian or a vegan?
M: I don’t have a lot of strict rules, but I would say I eat 99% vegetarian. Definitely plant-based diet, you could say. But I eat everything. If I go to somebody’s house and they offer me food I will eat it.
C: Are you a good cook, would you say?
M: I’m a good home cook! Not fancy. Lots of soups and stews.
C: What made you start thinking about being a Board Member?
M: I was generally looking for new volunteer opportunities, but then, to be perfectly honest…I should say I am a new Board Member. I just got elected to the Board last Fall. It was clear that not enough people were running! In the newsletter, which you do every month for a series of months there was information on running for the Board. It was getting toward the deadline, and it seemed like not enough people were running. I thought, “I can do this.” It was more like…it looked like you guys really needed people to run.
C: (laughing hard)
M: And I have some relevant skills. I know about co-ops and healthy food. I’ve managed budgets before and all that. I figured that becoming a Board Member was at least worth exploring. I talked to some of the other Board Members, and they thought that I could qualify. Honestly, I truly ran because there was a need. I wanted to support the Co-op because I was so impressed with how you all managed during COVID. I was really really impressed with the way that this Co-op protected staff and protected customers. I also really appreciate the doubling-up on SNAP and the efforts that the Co-op has made to make healthy food more affordable, because we all know it’s expensive. I support the Co-op, I support really specific Co-op efforts, and it sounded like the Board needed bodies.
C: We haven’t had a contested election (an election with more people running for the Board than seats available) since before my time (I’ve been at the store for 3 years) .
M: Really? It’ll have been that long? That’s our job as the Board, to promote elections. We need to talk it up more, and find more people to run for elections. I don’t know if your readers know, but there’s turnover every year because Board Members sign-up for a 3-year cycle. Some people might run again after that, and some people may want to move on. Every year it seems like there are some opportunities to join, and we just have to talk it up to the membership.
C: This is the difficult question — what has been the biggest / most impactful / most poignant lesson you’ve learned while on the Board?
M: Wow! Huh…I might have to ask for a pass on that, because I’m so new! Hmm…lessons learned. I wouldn’t call it poignant, but there is a steep learning curve on the business side of things. I’ve never run a business. I’ve managed budgets, but that’s different. Learning about the grocery business is completely different. The Board doesn’t run the store; we have a fabulous General Manager who does that. But we are responsible for the overall financial success of the store. If the store were to go belly-up financially, that ultimately would be on the Board. We are responsible. I wouldn’t call it ‘poignant’, but that’s where my learning curve is steepest.
C: We’re switching it now — in the previous interviews we were in a different season, so the question was, “What’s your favorite fall meal?” and then, “What’s your favorite winter meal?” Now we’re at…I guess…what’s your favorite spring/summer transitional meal?
M: I’m — I want to reject the survey question. (both laugh) Because I don’t have one favorite! I do enjoy asparagus. I love asparagus. I adore asparagus. When asparagus season comes around at the farmers market, I like making just about anything with it. Grilled asparagus, pasta with peas and asparagus and lemon…I make asparagus frittatas…I just put asparagus in everything in the Spring.
C: I admit, I’m not naturally drawn to asparagus. I’ll eat anything. So I’ve had a lot of asparagus in my life. But it’s not my first choice. Good, though. Fine, even.
C: How or why would you recommend running for the Board to another member?
M: I would recommend it. It’s a really nice group of people; when we get together and do our work, it’s enjoyable. If you’re somebody like me, who feels strongly supportive of the Co-op, it’s a great way to contribute. I don’t want to say anyone can do it, because you do have to make a commitment of time, but it’s not heavy. You learn a lot. You become a part of keeping this wonderful place successful.
C: When you were running for the Board, did you know the people who were already on the Board in some way? Were you already aware of them?
M: No! I met a few before deciding for sure to run, but I didn’t know any of the Board previously.
C: In response to Bob’s interview; Bob knew some of the people on the Board beforehand, and I want people to know that the Board is not made up of Takoma Park residents that all know each other already and work together.
M: No, not at all! I knew some former Board Members. (laughs) The other day, at Earth Day? (Mary and Chloe tabled together at the Co-op’s annual Earth Day celebration.) Lorig Charkoudian spoke, and someone let me know that she had previously been a Board Member at the Co-op. I didn’t know that she had been on the Board! The Board is not exclusive at all, I’ve found it to be very welcoming.
C: Why do you believe in co-ops?
M: Oh wow, okay. I drank the Kool-Aid a long time ago. It’s people coming together to meet a common need, in solidarity with their community. I’ve been in eating co-ops, I’ve been in food co-ops like this, my kid was in a co-operative nursery school…not always, but sometimes a co-op can lower costs — in the case of the nursery school, it lowered costs, because we did some of the work.
C: Was it this one? (Referring to Takoma Park Cooperative Nursery School)
M: No, this was in a different country. This was in Mozambique! Co-ops just make sense to me. I like that co-ops keep money in the community instead of going to private corporations. Another thing I love about this Co-op is that we’re unionized. I’m a huge supporter of unions in general, and it means a lot to me that this is a unionized staff. I actually don’t know if that’s the case at each and every co-op. But it is something I value. Keeping money in the community, buying local products…all the things that the Co-op does that make it a wonderful community member. The Co-op also partners with Small Things Matter, a local non-profit that I volunteer with. STM is a huge effort that feeds a lot of people, so the support of the Co-op is fantastic.
C: We skipped a question — what’s your favorite restaurant in the DMV? It doesn’t have to be in Takoma Park.
M: It might be Cielo Rojo, your neighbors.
C: Seriously?! That’s two. Elizabeth also said in her interview that Cielo Rojo is her favorite.
M: It’s really good, and I can walk there, so it’s extra good. And it’s uphill on the way there and downhill on the way home.
C: Final question. What would you like to impart to the readers of the newsletter and the website?
M: What would I like to impart? (sips water) I don’t think that I have words of wisdom for the readers of the newsletter. (both laugh) That makes it seem like I have some wisdom that they don’t have. I would just say appreciate your Co-op and get involved if you feel like it, it’s fun. How’s that? You dragged that out of me.
C: (laughing hard) I didn’t say anything.
M: I’m not preaching.
C: Then we’ll leave it there.
Mary can be reached at mary.arimond@tpssboard.com.