Co-founder of Minneapolis cooperative movements dies

The blog topic I chose today is an obituary for the death of Deborah Shroyer . She is a legend in the Minneapolis cooperative community. With her sister, she started the Peoples' Pantry on the back porch of a West Bank apartment. People would come and grab a pound of real oats or whole wheat flour and leave their money in a can. This led to a huge co-op revolution in the cities; people say there were more than two dozen worker run groceries at one time in the early seventies, most of which are now consumer co-ops (except North Country). Although she became increasingly debilitated by M.S., she remained an important figure for the cooperative movement here, as did the grocery she started and which people refer to as the "mother-store," North Country Co-op. There's a good book written by Craig Cox of the Utne Reacer and dealing with the Co-op movement, which was and still is one of the biggest in the country, it's called Storefront Revolution.