Common Ground Co-op Board Members

Richard has lived in Urbana 1997 when his family joined the co-op almost immediately after arriving in town. Recently he moved to a house with his wife, Barbara; daughter, Annapurna and mother-in-law. He works at home as a primary caretaker for his disabled adult daughter and assists his aged mother-in-law. He also provides administrative support for Barbara’s health business, which focuses on homeopathy. Food co-ops and buying clubs have been the major source of food for Richard since his first introduction to a co-op in 1971, even in Alaska when one was available.

Lisa Bralts-Kelly joined the CGFC board in November 2006 after working on the staff as an Outreach Coordinator for the co-op from March 2005-May 2006. Her family joined the co-op in March of 2005. Lisa describes herself as "a vegetable-growing omnivore!" Her interests in terms of Board work include outreach, fundraising, and marketing, and she would love to see the co-op become an even more important part of our local/regional food system. Lisa currently works for the City of Urbana as an Economic Development Specialist/Market at the Square Director.

Katrina met the Co-op when she moved to Chambana to do her undergraduate studies in 2002. She is sticking around to complete her Masters’ degree in Library and Information Science and is excited to be able to continue to shop, serve, and play at Common Ground in the meantime. Katrina is happy to work in the trenches, bagging and stocking bulk items for the grocery department as a member-worker, and she is equally enthused to help steer the CGFC’s future as a member of the Board.

Ben was born in the piney woods of East Texas. He moved to Chicago and accidentally became an international banker, a career that saw him wearing a suit and tie in the City of London for eight years. He escaped that world and moved to a smallholding outside of a small village in Leicestershire where the locals were never quite sure if he was weird or just American.

I graduated from Illinois State University with a degree in Agriculture Economics. I was a core worker for about 3 years and have been a member for almost 5 years. The aspect about the co-op I love is the sense of community every time I shop knowing that it is an experience I cannot match anywhere else in town. I continue to have that strong sense that I’m accomplishing much more than buying food and I look forward to the Common Ground Food Co-op being a strong link to the Central Illinois community.

Clint has been involved with the co-op since 2000, and has previously served as a Tuesday night coreworker, an outreach liaison at the farmer’s market, a store operations coordinator, a facilitator for coordinator meetings, and a bread baker. Through his role as board chair he hopes to help build a strong and stable future for the co-op, helping to increase the level of empowerment and accountability within our organization in order to create a co-op that can achieve its goals of spreading the joy of good food and cooperation to a larger and more diverse community.