Celebrating National Co-op Month

By Kerry Watson, Director of Communications

Each October, cooperatives throughout the country and the world take time to celebrate the contributions and accomplishments of cooperative businesses. Cooperatives are unique because they are not-for-profit, democratically controlled, member-owned enterprises.

Members of cooperatives pool their assets to meet the needs of their community in the form of food, financial services or purchasing power for family owned businesses. The cooperative spirit has been embraced by 100 million members, who are served by 29,000 cooperatives across our nation, working together to achieve community and economic advancement.

Locally owned and controlled, cooperatives play a vital role in the economic development and stability of the communities they serve, helping people improve their lives through an increase in jobs and access to goods and services that would otherwise be more expensive, lower in quality, or simply unavailable.　

This year’s Co-op Month theme,"Collaborate, Communicate, Cooperate," emphasizes how great things happen when people join forces and collaborate and how cooperatives are businesses built on collaboration. That’s as true here at MKC as it is in cooperatives across the United States. A philosophy of people helping people lies at the core of all cooperatives, and it’s an advantage that has distinguished co-ops for more than 150 years. Socially responsible business is not a fad with cooperatives; it’s just how co-ops work.

This Co-op Month, we hope everyone will join us in celebrating the cooperative difference, our proud cooperative heritage and the wonderful opportunities cooperative membership will offer in central Kansas for many years to come.　Let’s collaborate, communicate and cooperate!