A LITTLE PUBLICATION FOR REAL PEOPLEWASECA / ISSUE 000 / EXPERIMENTAL PROOF / 25 OCT 2026
AN INDEPENDENT NEIGHBORHOOD BROADSHEET

THE GROCERY
THAT ISN'T
HERE YET.

Good. We can still ask what it should become.

A community-owned grocery is being explored in Waseca. Before anyone can hand us a shopping basket, we can hand one another a question: what would make a grocery genuinely worth building and owning together?

From the next page: Could Waseca's churches help the town own a grocery? ↓

FOUR ROADS INTO ONE CONVERSATION

Affordable

What staple foods and prices would make ordinary shopping workable?

Local

What would make a store useful for local growers without assuming they have agreed?

Access

What hours, routes, and accessibility choices matter?

Belonging

How could ordinary people shape the idea without joining a committee?

ONE QUESTION. ONE NEIGHBOR. ONE RETURN.

Ask the question. Hand a neighbor a copy. If somebody wishes to respond, let the answer travel voluntarily. This is not a membership petition, an organizer announcement, or a volunteer assignment.

Add your idea to the independent Garden ↗Read Issue 001 · Open Calls ↗

Press proof only. No Waseca Area Food Cooperative sponsorship or membership registration. No participant or producer is enrolled by reading or sharing. This issue is not yet admitted to the lemonPRESS house catalog.

LEMONPRESS / THE OPEN PAGE / ISSUE 001 / INDEPENDENT PROPOSAL

ONE TOWN.
MANY CONGREGATIONS.
ONE COMMON TABLE.

What if Waseca's churches helped their neighbors own the grocery?

Here's an experiment: invite congregations across town to help interested households learn about the cooperative, consider membership through its official process, and bring their practical strengths to the table. The store would still belong to its community owners—not to a single church, denomination, or religious coalition.

Congregations could cooperate on rides, volunteer work, introductions, and food access. Start by asking whether one real, permission-based problem—such as affordable staples—could be solved together. No food shelf needs, grant changes, or church commitments are asserted as confirmed.

A seven-day experiment: invite one initial conversation; allow each willing participant to introduce up to two others or an alternate representative; find one consented overlap between a need and a willing helper; return one honest report of what happened.

A table, not a takeover. Cooperative membership, votes and dues belong to the co-op's actual rules and verified official channels. This independent article recruits no members and does not speak for Real Life Covenant Church, other churches, the Waseca Area Food Cooperative, or food shelves.

Read the complete newspaper feature ↗ Share your own idea ↗

This is a separate Issue 001 editorial proposal added to the digital reading copy; the original Issue 000 printable proof and four cards are unchanged. Not yet admitted to the lemonPRESS catalog.

THE TAKE-HOME PAGE

FOUR CARDS.
GIVE THEM AWAY.

Print this page, cut the four cards apart, and ask a neighbor a real question. Your printer doesn't need color. The four cards point to the same public, independent conversation.

WASECA / A GROCERY WE COULD GROW

AFFORDABLE

What would make your next grocery affordable for ordinary shopping?

QR code to the independent Waseca grocery community conversation
ONE QUESTION. ONE NEIGHBOR.
Open the independent conversation ↗
Not official co-op membership.
WASECA / A GROCERY WE COULD GROW

LOCAL

What would make a store genuinely useful for nearby growers?

QR code to the independent Waseca grocery community conversation
ONE QUESTION. ONE NEIGHBOR.
Open the independent conversation ↗
Not official co-op membership.
WASECA / A GROCERY WE COULD GROW

ACCESS

What would make a Waseca grocery easier to reach and use?

QR code to the independent Waseca grocery community conversation
ONE QUESTION. ONE NEIGHBOR.
Open the independent conversation ↗
Not official co-op membership.
WASECA / A GROCERY WE COULD GROW

BELONG

How can neighbors help shape the grocery before it opens?

QR code to the independent Waseca grocery community conversation
ONE QUESTION. ONE NEIGHBOR.
Open the independent conversation ↗
Not official co-op membership.

Every card includes an embedded scan-ready QR, with no external QR service or tracking scripts. The separate PDF proof is also available as a two-page print kit.