harvest moon

“Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?” asks Tom Rath, author of the book Strengths Finder 2.0. ”Chances are, you don’t,” he continues. “All too often, our natural talents go untapped. From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths.”

As a result, Rath writes, 77 percent of parents “think that a student’s lowest grade deserves the most time and attention.” And “teachers reward excellence with apathy instead of investing more time in the areas where a child has the most potential for greatness.”

The story of how the newest Twin Cities area co-op came into existence is a testament to the power of community.

First, a commitment to community sparked the idea more than five years ago.

“I grew up in a small town,” explained Kari Pastir-Smith, one of the founders of Harvest Moon, in Long Lake, Minnesota, and now its marketing chief. Last week, she sat down with me, a Harvest Moon member, and Peter Doolan, Harvest Moon’s general manager, in the new store’s cheery, sunlit deli. “I saw Long Lake as a small town, too,” she continued, “except that it didn’t have a grocery store, and it didn’t have a gathering place to bring the community together in a cohesive way. With Harvest Moon, we now have both.”

For a while, though, there were doubts about whether they could actually pull it off.

There’s potentially good food news for two Twin Cities communities in 2010: a new farmer’s market and a new food co-op.

According to the Star Tribune, Edina may finally get its own farmer’s market, “if a proposal that's going to the Edina Park Board in January makes its way through city review processes in time.”

Strib reporter Mary Jane Smetanka writes, “The idea of adding an Edina farmers market came out of a two-year, $1.6 million grant that was received by Bloomington, Richfield and Edina. The Statewide Health Improvement Program grant came from the state health access fund, funded by a fee paid by health care providers. The money goes to activities that are aimed at promoting health.”