Cooking Up Plans for Food Co-op and Carbon Positive Port Jervis
Jeremy Shannon at his Deerpark house
Jeremy Shannon has a germinating vision of creating a food co-op grocery store in Port Jervis, owned and operated by several hundred Tri-state residents. They would be drawn to the organic and local food they could buy there at attractive prices and perhaps the co-op culture that appealed to Shannon in Brooklyn. There, in addition to paying dues, members contribute three hours of work monthly, as Shannon did, ringing up customers, stocking shelves, or other store chores to minimize operating costs.
“Everyone came from different walks of life, so you were connected in ways that you wouldn't normally be outside the co-op,” said Shannon, an architect. “It also meant that as you walked around the city you saw more people you knew. That made us feel more connected to where we lived.”
A growing group, now 30 people, has been talking for several months about the co-op plan and recently formed a steering committee. One member, Diana Lyon, recalls her special relationship with the produce section at the food co-op in Olympia, Washington, where she was previously a member. People tend to pick through kale and cilantro bunches, broccoli crowns and Romaine heads, looking for the biggest and greenest, but Lyon took responsibility for orderliness.
“I did the produce display, and I couldn’t just leave a mess to clean up,” she said. “There’s a different engagement for people as members.”
Now a social worker living in Milford with her husband and children, Lyon says the steering committee is working on tailoring the co-op to Tri-state residents’ needs.
“We want an independently operated, full service co-op for the whole community, with a range of local, healthy, affordable food. The co-op would draw from the Tri-State area, and Port Jervis would be the hub. It would be a place for skill sharing and education, and maybe on-site child care,” she said. “We want a bigger steering committee. We want to get the word out, find out who wants to make this happen and get them plugged in.”
To spread the word, they plan to have booths at the Port Jervis farmers market and Port Jervis Fall Festival.
“We’re recruiting people for those booths,” she said. “We want people to be part of the group process, building a network, an identity, a business plan, to incorporate as a cooperative.” On Thursday, July 29, at 7 p.m., Shannon will be at Kamelot, 67 Ball St., to discuss the venture.
Shannon’s Port Jervis Plan: Carbon Positive Cost Saving
The co-op initiative is one of several that Shannon has recently launched around Port Jervis, aiming to make the city “carbon positive” by 2026—giving more energy to the grid than it takes—with strategies that save money for both city and residents. Buying locally produced food results in a lighter carbon footprint than food shipped long distances, and food prices can be researched, wholesale deals made.
“I love the beauty here but miss the sustainability focus, so I got started on it,” Shannon said of his mission.
Improving sustainability is both profession and passion for him, as director of sustainable design and resiliency for the New York City School Construction Authority. He oversees 1500 existing public school buildings as well as the annual construction of a dozen more.
“When we get new sustainability strategies from research and development, we use it immediately. I wanted that knowledge used locally,” Shannon said.
He and his wife and three children had been living in Brooklyn until they began building a house on a 120-acre Deerpark farm in 2016. They built their energy-efficient house with their own labor, using Passive House design standards. That meant emphasizing quality insulation,
thick windows and installing a heat pump. They continue building the outer walls with stones they collect from their property.
Passive House standards, Shannon said, can reduce heating costs by 90% and cooling by 70%, in contrast with the 10-20% savings with Energy STAR efficiency, standards for an Environmental Protection Agency program.
“With that level of efficiency, you can drastically reduce the mechanical system sizes. Practicing Passive House design and construction since 2009 on single family, multifamily, and commercial buildings, I’ve found that the additional cost can be less than 10% on smaller projects and as low as cost parity on larger commercial projects because of this initial cost saving on mechanical systems.”
The stones are the only part of his house reminiscent of the German castles that prompted Shannon, at age six, to decide on an architecture career, after a trip to Europe with his mother, a German teacher. But his attraction to Port Jervis was rooted in “the compact community sense” he liked in European villages, he said.
Shannon has a plan in motion to make Port Jervis a “carbon positive” model city, via increasing energy efficiency in buildings and vehicles, planting 10,000 trees and creating shop local incentives.
“In New York City, sustainability goals require action by 2030, but nine years is too far away to focus on,” he said. “We need a two to five year focus, rather than wait to get serious.”
To that end he arranged to convert city trucks to biofuel with costs waived to support the demonstration of viability. Meanwhile, he works with fellow tree enthusiast Jim Blanton to find volunteers with places to put the 10,000 trees they seek grants to acquire.
Jeremy Shannon will discuss the food co-op plan and other Carbon Positive initiatives at 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 29, at Kamelot, 67 Ball St., Port Jervis. Please email tristatelookout@gmail.com to RSVP. First in a series of free Tri-State Lookout events.