This is it. This is Where the Rubber Meets the Road.

This is it.  This is where the rubber meets the road.  This is where East Aurora proves how important a Co-op is to our community.  This is it.

In the coming days the board will meet to review our progress toward capitalizing our cooperative market.  They’ll see that more than 88 new members have signed on since the site was announced three months ago.  They’ll learn we’re progressing nicely with our external funding as we work to complete agreements with up to three different lenders.  They’ll hear anecdotal accounts of how our yard signs have really helped our community rally behind our effort.

But they’ll also learn that we’re still short in our member capital campaign, and that’s not good.  It’s not that our member-owners don’t want to help – one of every four contacted has made an investment.  And it’s not that their investments are too small, our average is just short of a very respectable $4,000.  It’s the number of people we’ve not been able to contact.

The problem is the season.  Summer is a tough time to reach people.  Our committed Capital Campaign team has been on the phone every day, but they’ve heard more than their share of voicemail messages.  We know members want to help, it’s getting them to the table that’s proven to be the challenge.

Yet still, this is it.  We need you, and we need you now.  An incomplete campaign will leave the board in a very difficult position.  We’ve come so far – but if we can’t cross the finish line, if we can’t finish the race, well, we don’t even want to think about it.

Here’s what we need.  We need every member-owner capable and interested in making an investment to come forward and do so.  Now.  And we need some of those investments to be in the five figure range.  If that happens, and happens soon, then we’ll all be celebrating a new market next spring.  If it doesn’t and this window closes, we don’t know how long it will be until another one opens.

So contact Sheila (912-0672) or Mike (316-1090) right now.  We’ll make it as easy and painless as we can.  We’ll come to you or we’ll meet you at the Campaign office.  One document to sign and one check to write.  That’s all it will take!

This is it.  Let’s do this, lets finish the Campaign!