After my little post about saving money by using a Co-op I was informed that there are also more ways to save money. How? Well by volunteering at one!
One of our future contributors mentioned that she volunteers every time there is a chance. Why volunteer? Well since the organic buying club she belongs to are 100% volunteer based, it is just a good thing to do. Someone has to separate out all the deliverables into the individual packets to be handed to all the organic buying club members. So why does this help save more money?
Well by using volunteers the buying club or co-op does not have to spend money for employees hence the food stays cheaper. But it gets better than that! At her buying club the volunteers get to save 15.00 dollars off their individual bags for helping that week! How awesome is that?
Not awesome enough you say? They also have to separate out the slightly damaged food, but they don’t throw it away. Any volunteers that might want it, can have it by splitting it amongst themselves. This means any bruised fruit or vegetables that are still good get to be added to the volunteers now cheaper bag. Also some volunteers do not like certain foods and they usually have left overs.. that’s right.. The other volunteers get to split it amongst themselves!
In the end she says she usually gets two or three bags of food, while providing a needed service and for a cheaper price than normal. It really pays to volunteer!
If you have any further tips on using a coop or any comments on this article please share it below. We would love to hear from you!
I would love to volunteer there!
Comment by Kage — November 11, 2008 @ 7:12 pm
You can :-). Just look for a local one and volunteer what time you can when you can!
Comment by admin — November 11, 2008 @ 7:19 pm