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Our Mission | A Shared Goal
Patchwork Alliance is a co-op for local growers, crafters, service-providers, and makers of all stripes. We're building a stronger WNC by providing independent producers with ownership in a shared marketplace that connects them with regional consumers who want local, fresh, and natural products, and who value community-owned agriculture, local economy, and cultural diversity.
Sunil Patel
General Manager
Sunil helped found Patchwork Alliance based on his farm, Patchwork Urban Farms. An experienced farmer of 15 years, he has learned more and more over the course of his growing career about the flaws in our food system. He founded Patchwork Alliance in an endeavor to utilize a cooperative business model to increase food security and build trusting relationships throughout Western North Carolina, where he has lived since moving from Pittsburgh in 2013. Sunil lives in West Asheville with his dog, Sweety, and in his downtime he enjoys hiking, skiing, and cooking.
Janelle King
Board of Directors
Janelle has been a huge supporter of cooperative business since the first time she walked into a worker-owned food co-op in Olympia, Washington in the late ‘90s. Patchwork Alliance makes the third co-op she’s been involved with, and she’s deeply grateful to participate in a project that builds community by decentralizing the supply chain. She handles all things related to customer support for Patchwork Alliance while also raising twin daughters and managing two other businesses of her own: Twin Flower Botanicals and Vertical Pins. She’s proud to have five generations of WNC mountain people in her ancestry.
Hannah Jeske
Producer Relations Coordinator
Hannah Jeske moved to Asheville from Wisconsin in 2009 to study Environmental Science at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, where she later went on to obtain a Masters in Environmental & Cultural Sustainability. As a worker-owner in Patchwork Alliance, she helps producers set up and manage their accounts, troubleshoot issues, and optimize their experience in the online market. In addition to this, she also manages an organic vegetable farm and runs an AirBnB out of her home. When she’s not working, she enjoys crafting, gardening, foraging, cooking, and trail-running with her dog, Hazel.
Vanya Wenger
Board of Directors, finance coordinator
Bio Coming Soon...
Areal
Board of Directors
Bio Coming Soon...
Ed Bowser
Board of Directors, Producer relations
Bio Coming Soon...
Vision | A Shared Plan
Our community understands the urgency and necessity of organized, active and thriving local food systems which are accessible and ethical for people and the environment.
We create significant positive impact for these communities, by helping individual households transition from the current extractive, industrialized economic systems into local foodsheds and production systems.
We extend our values of cooperative organization, regenerative agriculture, and local economic investment throughout our region and create networks of abundant communities.
Innovation | A Shared Strategy
Many gifts of the information age can be refined and repurposed into systems that serve progressive Alternative Economic and Currency Models.
Patchwork Alliance utilizes Local Food Marketplace software, which contains impressive functionality and personalization that allows for creative thinking about Local Economic Exchange.
Through this software platform, a multi-stakeholder ownership structure with inter-producer, inter-worker, and inter-service-provider trading and
commerce is possible.
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