Group explores buying, selling local in Fort Belknap meeting

Backers of an ongoing push on Fort Belknap Indian Reservation to encourage people to produce, buy and sell local goods met at the Chief Nosey Center in Lodge Pole Wednesday.

People at the "Building Fort Belknap's Economy" community meeting took part in discussions, heard about co-ops and took a tour of the Red Paint Creek Trading Post. The trading post is a cooperative that will include a grocery store, public kitchen, a food pantry and a gas station, planned to be open soon.

Fruits and vegetables will be grown in the nearby community garden or from the gardens of co-op members.

The construction of the Trading Post was funded through a mix of different grants.

When it does open, it will provide people in Lodge Pole something they don't have: a place to get freshly grown vegetables and other goods.

"This will be the first time that residents within this area don't have to travel some 20-odd miles to get fuel or go buy a gallon of milk or anything like that," Opportunity Link Inc. Executive Director Barb Stiffarm said.

She said the lack of a grocery store on the reservation has prompted people to plant their own gardens, and it has reached the point where they can act as their own supplier.

The store is in a 5,400-square-foot modular building. It has commercial freezers and refrigeration. The cabinets, check-out counters and produce bins were made by local woodworkers, Josie Cliff said as she gave a tour of the store after the meeting.

The store was slated to have a soft opening earlier this month, but some work still needs to be done. Cliff said the work includes putting in place an island for the gas pumps, laying gravel in the parking lot and installing security cameras.

Other areas of the trading post, such as the public kitchen, where people will be able to prepare food, are still not furnished with appliances.

Jan Brown, executive director of the Montana Cooperative Development Center, which helps set up co-ops, was a featured speaker.

Liz Ching of the Governor's Office of Economic Development planned to speak at the meeting, but Stiffarm said Ching could not make it due to schedule conflicts.

Brown said she first heard about efforts to get a co-op started in Lodge Pole about a year and a half ago when Lauren "Bum" Stiffarm was at a meeting where she was a speaker.

He had told her a building was ready and a manager had been hired, but the goal was to have the store operate as a co-op, she said.

"I said, 'That is terrific,'" Brown said.

She said, typically, people decide to establish a co-op first and then think about finding a facility and the details about how the business should operate.

In a co-op, rather than having an organization or one or two people own a business, people join as members with each owning a part of the business.

If the business generates a profit at year's end its members get a certain percentage or dividend, decided by a board of directors who are elected by co-op members.

The more a member uses the service or business the larger the percentage they will get if a profit is made.

Brown said the idea is used especially in rural areas, where a customer base to sustain a business owned by an individual is lacking.

"So if everyone says, 'we are all going to contribute, and operate at cost and a little extra in trading reserve' then it can work," she said.

Brown added that starting in the 1930s the co-op model brought telephone and electricity to rural areas.

Hill County Electric and Triangle Telephone - now Triangle Communications - are local examples of those cooperatives.

More than 150 cooperative businesses operate throughout Montana, Brown said. Those businesses range from telephone cooperatives, electricity co-ops and credit unions.

"This is happening all over Montana," she said.

Though often associated with either food or utilities, co-ops reach into other areas, too, she said.

"If you can have a chance at helping people through cooperation, that is what a co-op is, it can set it up to benefit you," Brown said.

Brown distributed a handout talking about how small grocery stores in communities throughout Montana are either converting into or are operating as co-ops. She said there is one in Turner and another in a grocery store re-opening in Geraldine.

All are hiring general managers at the same time, Brown said.

She said Cliff and others have an opportunity to form a small network of managers.

A study is now underway to look at creating the Golden Triangle Local Food system, a food hub in communities within a 150 mile radius of Great Falls, Brown said. The area would include the Fort Belknap, Rocky Boy's and Blackfeet Indian reservations and nearby communities. It would go toward Great Falls and she said may eventually reach south of the city.

The aim will be to establish ties between agriculture producers and institutions such as schools, prisons, stores and other entities interested in buying local food within the area, she said.

Brown said the report says "we must build (and) consider mutual respect and trust among the leaders and then among the broader communities."

She said the Trading Post, when it opens, has the opportunity to be a leader in the co-op field. Unlike many stores that become co-ops, the the Red Paint Creek Trading Post is in a modern building and includes a food pantry.

The Fort Belknap Indian Community last Friday held their People's Market, an outdoor market where people could sell crafted items. Stiffarm said it featured six vendors.

Despite the less-than-ideal weather, she said, the market saw a good turnout.

At Wednesday's meeting attendees also hashed out a schedule for future markets.

They decided the next People's Market will take place July 13 across from the Lodge Pole powwow grounds. Vendors can set up at 2 p.m. and the market will be open to the public at 3 p.m. The fee to have a table at the market is $20.

Markets also are planned for July 29 at the Fort Belknap Agency across from the Kwik Stop and Aug. 10. in Hays.