A Very Special "Thank You"

People are constantly coming to Champaign-Urbana, and just as many are constantly taking off for adventures in new locales. It’s part of what makes the twin cities great, this constant influx of new ideas and faces. It’s also what makes many summers bittersweet in C-U. Just as all the new folks flock to Common Ground, many who’ve made their marks on our community and our hearts are leaving. There will be many new owners and staff to say hello to this coming month, and more than one owner and beloved Common Ground staffer to say goodbye to. But there is one very special farewell I’d like to share with all my fellow Co-op owners. This week, we are saying goodbye and thank you to Meagan Luhrs, Common Ground’s Outreach Coordinator for almost three years.

I love getting feedback from my fellow owners and Co-op customers, and far and away the comment I’ve heard the most these last 11 months goes something like, “the new store is so beautiful! I love the atmosphere!” If you love the way the new store looks, you owe your thanks to Meagan. If you love the Common Ground t-shirts, the great monthly classes, the Owner Appreciation Day, you owe your thanks to – yup, you guessed it – Meagan. But it’s not just the tangible things that Meagan has done at the Co-op that have meant so much, it’s the spirit she’s brought to the place.

When Meagan started working as a cashier at Common Ground in August of 2006, she revealed a talent for design and we quickly snapped her up to be Common Ground’s Outreach Coordinator. As our Co-op moved faster and faster towards the reality of relocating in 2008, Meagan became more and more involved. As a part of the management team, she contributed a strong voice in developing a vision for an expanded Common Ground. She spent many an hour designing and laying out member loan letters, stamping envelopes, drawing giant carrots to count money raised (remember filling up the member loan carrot to the very top? What a thrill!), planning parties to raise more money for the relocation, and being amazing emotional support to me through those days when my head hit the desk because I wasn’t sure we could pull it all off .

And then it was time to actually build the new store: the dream was becoming a reality. Contractor hired? Check. Lenders on board? Check. Owners behind the project and excited? Check. But who the heck was going to design the store’s interior and make it feel like home to all of us Common Grounders and to all the new community members we’d be throwing our doors open to? I’d forgotten to plan that part, and there was Meagan, with her amazing eye for design, her ability for finding the pulse of the Common Ground spirit, and her willingness to work her butt off for what she believed in.

I have no idea the actual number of days and hours Meagan put into helping to make our new Co-op home a reality, but I think I can safely say that no one on the staff, other than maybe me, put in more time on it. There was almost no such thing as days off for Meagan in the months around the store opening and she never complained. Not only did Meagan scour catalogs and drive to Chicago to find the perfect fixtures, spend nights agonizing over just the right paint color and whether we’d all like it, struggle to keep everything on budget, and work almost daily in person or by phone with the project contractor, she was also a consistent advocate for using as many sustainable materials as possible.

You may not know it, but the carpet in our entryway is made of recycled plastic and is modular, so when part of it is damaged, we can replace just that piece, not throw away the whole carpet. All the paint used in the store was low- or no-VOC. The cement floors in the store are a reuse of the original concrete subflooring that prevented hundreds of toxic vinyl tiles from ending up on Common Ground’s floors. The dual flush, high efficiency toilets in our bathrooms save precious drinking-quality water from being wasted. The beautiful wood surrounding the Co-op’s checkout counter is all recycled from the Preservation and Conservation Association of Champaign County store. The lovely tables on the porch are made of fast-growing and highly durable eucalyptus wood, which should last much longer than regular patio furniture and is one of the most environmentally-friendly woods available. All of these sustainable choices were advocated, researched, and brought to fruition by Meagan.

Not only did Meagan give her heart and soul to making Common Ground’s new store beautiful and a reflection of the vision of its owners, she gave everything she had to making the relocation a success in any way she could. During the heady, jam-packed first weeks of the new store space being open, Meagan ran the register, walked the store handing out free samples, and filled in doing anything that needed doing. And she loved it! She has always loved any opportunity to work with the owners and often said how she missed being at the register, getting to know all of you personally.

Working at Common Ground was never “just a job” for Meagan. She believes in what your Co-op stands for and has, as a reward, gotten to watch the success of that vision in action, which she had no small part in making a reality.

Thank you, Meagan. We hope your time at Common Ground has had as profound and positive effect on your life as it has had on your Co-op.

In Cooperation,
Jacqueline

P.S. The small town in rural New York that Meagan is moving to doesn’t have a co-op …yet. There is a group of determined folks there in the beginning stages of trying to start one, and they’ve asked Meagan to join them and share her knowledge of all things co-op. This may be far from the end of her passionate work to grow co-ops!