In 1976, self-proclaimed former hippies, aided by professors of agriculture at Michigan State University, banded together to create the East Lansing Food Co-Op. Fifty years and a name change later, that operation has experienced turbulent times and an evolving view of community.
A food co-op is similar to a grocery store, except it is owned, governed and sometimes operated by the people who shop there. Members pay a regular fee — like membership dues, for example — in addition to paying for their groceries. ELFCO allowed nonmembers to shop the co-op, as well.
According to a history published in 2022 by City Pulse, ELFCO was born at a bicycle co-op owned by MSU student Thomas Moore at 211 Evergreen Avenue in East Lansing. Over the next five decades, it would expand and contract. A review of articles over the years by the Lansing State Journal shows that ELFCO has fluctuated between prosperity and insolvency a host of times…