Helen Rortvedt
Why would you like to serve on the City Market Board? What excites you about becoming a Board Member?
I joined City Market when I moved to Burlington in 2017. I love how the Co-op supports our local economy, connects us to our local farmers and food producers, provides meaningful and dignified employment for many of our neighbors, and fosters a sense of community among us. I would be honored to serve on the Board and excited to bring nearly 15 years of experience in food systems, organizational development, and leadership to our Co-op. I genuinely love contributing to and participating in shared leadership models, and I truly believe we are better together.
The Board seeks candidates who are dedicated, cooperative, committed to diversity, equity and inclusion, and willing to participate in group discussions ranging from financial oversight to support of management, staff and Members. Please describe the skills and experiences you have that will help you be an effective Board Member in these regards. How would you use your skills and experiences to help the Board understand and use data as part of the decision-making process of our community-owned cooperative?
As the Deputy Director for Programs and Operations at the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT), I wear many hats and have varied responsibilities that contribute to the successful management, operations, and impact of our organization. I am part of the core leadership team that embraces a shared leadership and decision-making structure. I oversee the annual budget development process and work closely with our Finance Director and Board Finance Committee to ensure the overall fiscal health of the organization. I work closely with our Program Directors to design and implement programs and strategies that move us closer to our vision of thriving farms and agriculturally-rooted communities that support the long-term well-being of the earth and all its people. I have extensive experience monitoring, evaluating, and reporting on the impacts of our programs to a wide array of funders and to our membership. I would bring these skills, experiences, and leadership frameworks with me to the City Market Board.
Describe your prior involvement with community organizations and/or cooperatives. What did you learn from these experiences?
I was a co-founder of Food Connects (in Brattleboro) in 2012. We had a vision for healthy families, thriving farms, and connected communities, so we built an organization around those values. Today, it boasts a vibrant Farm to School program and one of Vermont's largest food hubs, a distribution model that values producers and supply chain transparency over profit. There, I learned the value of taking time to build relationships and to embrace collaboration, even though that often means things progress more slowly. Since 2019, I have had the privilege of working for NOFA-VT. We are also a membership-based organization, and as staff, we ensure that all of the work we do is informed by and in service to our membership. Our growing membership includes Vermont's corps of exceptional certified organic farmers and non-certified farms committed to organic principles, along with thousands of homesteaders, gardeners, and community members who believe in our mission to build an economically viable, ecologically sound, and socially just Vermont agricultural system. Building on the lessons of centering relationships and collaboration, my time at NOFA-VT has taught me to embrace the mindset of collective impact and the process of being accountable to our membership.
The Board collaborates with the General Manager to support inclusion, diversity, equity, access and social justice (IDEAS) at City Market. How would you ensure that the Board's work is grounded in these principles? How would you help point City Market in the right direction when it comes to IDEAS? Please describe any prior involvement in IDEAS work either personally or professionally?
I serve as the co-chair of our staff Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Committee at NOFA-VT. Together, we developed a Statement of Intention on Social Justice that calls us to recognize the painful truths that agriculture in this country is built upon a foundation of systemic racism, land theft, genocide, and slavery. It also calls us to find our place in repairing these harms. The committee includes representatives from all of our programs and serves primarily as an accountability space, ensuring that we are embedding a JEDI lens to all of our work across the organization, from administration, to local food access, organic certification, and technical assistance to farmers. As a City Market Board Member, I would, similarly, seek to ensure that we are centering the values of inclusion, diversity, equity, access, and social justice in any policy we are reviewing or evaluating. This work does not stand alone in any one role or department, but rather, all Co-op staff and members must be called to understand and uphold their role in ensuring that our Co-op is welcoming to all, accessible to all, and that it defends and invests in diversity and equity.
What opportunities and challenges do you see in the future of City Market?
City Market is not alone in facing the many complex challenges that are impacting our community today, though, as a business owned by over 12,000 of our neighbors, I believe we have a unique role to play. As City Market continues to make progress on its path back to profitability–after investing in an incredible community asset in the South End store–and while navigating the economic, social, and public safety challenges it’s facing, our members are our greatest asset. Whether we have been members for decades or we have only recently joined, collectively, we ensure that our community has access to local, healthy, delicious food, good jobs, a thriving local economy, and a commitment to one another.