At the end of August, your Board of Directors spent a full day together to establish goals and a work plan for 2024-2025. What distinguished the day was the flow of positive energy, show of strong commitment, and affirmation of the collective dedication to serve the community.

We established three goals which you’ll be hearing more about in the months ahead. We hope you, as owners, will join us in developing these goals through our many Board committees that involve smart, fun people working together to enhance our experience and engagement with Deep Roots!

✅ Goal #1: Develop a strong statement of what distinguishes Deep Roots Market today from other markets and co-ops so that we can communicate that clearly and consistently in all messaging. This task, one that will build upon our roots while also recognizing the changing community landscape, will involve soliciting input from our owners in the coming weeks and months. This goal is designed to directly and positively impact our other goals and the overall operations of Deep Roots Market.

✅ Goal #2: Achieve robust financial health and increase Deep Roots’ vibrancy to be able to initiate new programming, store changes, and pay off all outstanding owner loans by 2027. We will release plans later this fall about new programming, fundraising, and details about an ambitious owner loan repayment schedule (and we’ll communicate directly as well with the owners who graciously provided loans to make Deep Roots what it is today!). We know many of you who loaned us funds have been patient and we thank you for that. We are committed to paying off all owner loans and promise to communicate in the next 90 days our specific plans for how to do that. You can expect significant loan repayment to start in 2024. In the meantime, we ask that you please refrain from asking our market staff about this...we will keep you updated as soon as our plans and projections are solid. Keep in mind that you can always write to the Board President with questions at boardofdirectors@deeprootsmarket.com.

✅ Goal #3: Support the onboarding of our new General Manager. As announced previously, we are thrilled that Matt Davis has taken over as Deep Roots’ new General Manager, effective July 1, 2024, a job that requires him to wear many hats and take on new tasks and responsibilities. Our core values of equity, democracy at work and in the community, care for others, sustainability, and social responsibility will guide our effort to work with Matt to ensure Deep Roots continues to grow and serve the people of Greater Greensboro.

Many thanks to you, our owners and shoppers, for supporting Deep Roots Market.