One of the defining experiences of my life was starting a business in Brooklyn, NY called Bed-Stuy Fresh & Local, a grocery store featuring locally sourced produce and products in the neighborhood I called home. Founded with the intention of creating a worker owned cooperative, BSFL was easily the most creative project I conceptualized, designed, and executed.
At that time in 2013, Bedford-Stuyvesant was emerging as the next hotspot for real estate and, ultimately, gentrification. As I white person who had been living there for some time, I remained very aware of my role in that process. So, in conceiving of this project, it was important for me that the store be engaged with and representative of the neighborhood. To truly meet this goal, the business needed to be as equitable as possible and distribute control, responsibility, and profit evenly across all worker-owners. I worked with many local organizations -- Bridge Street Development Corp, City Harvest, The Working World, the Northeast Brooklyn Housing Development Corporation (NEBHDCo), and the NYC Business Solutions -- to achieve this. BSFL hired staff through EXALT, a back-to-work program that coordinated employment for youth caught up in the legal system, and through a similar workforce development program at Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.
From the start, I also wanted the store to be able to accommodate a variety of community events. I created a modular floor plan, where cabinets and fixtures -- all on wheels -- were designed to be reconfigured to create a new space. We regularly held dinner parties hosted by neighborhood chefs, tasting events to highlight the locally-produced goods we sold, block party association socials and meetings, live music performances, weekend BBQs, and holiday parties. The front check out counter even had cabinets designed to hold a turntable, mixer, and records for a DJ (this was utilized more than you'd think). We participated in neighborhood events like the STooPS Art Walk, featured local artists’ work on our walls, and even won the “Greenest Storefront in Brooklyn” award from the Brooklyn Botanical Garden in 2014. BSFL became a community space, representing the diversity of the neighborhood, bringing people together, and promoting a local food system.
Every step of this project proved to be highly collaborative and nothing would have happened without the hard work and unique contributions of everyone involved. There was Jules, a Bed-Stuy native with West Indian roots who filled our kitchen with love and her infectious personality. Christina came to us after just being released from prison and quickly became one of our most trusted and reliable collaborators. Drew, a local artist and regular customer, volunteered his time to paint our storefront to match our vibe. We even bartered with a local bookkeeping collective to manage our financial records. And I could go on and on.
As with BSFL, I want to create art that brings people together to create collectively and build community.
