Marshfield, News

Cooperation Vermont Buys Former Rainbow Sweets Building

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MARSHFIELD – The Rainbow Sweets Bakery Building in Marshfield is now a part of the Cooperation Vermont Community Land Trust, the organization reported on social media January 31. “Today Cooperation Vermont took another big step in our efforts to build local resilience through localizing and democratizing the economy.”

The former Rainbow Sweets Bakery and Cafe in Marshfield was purchased by the nonprofit Cooperation Vermont Community Land Trust, January 31. Plans for the building include upstairs housing and a commercial kitchen and a possible home for healing arts practitioners and a local apothecary.
courtesy photo

The purchase brings the building at 1689 U.S. Rte. 2 into the nonprofit Cooperation Vermont Community Land Trust to be permanently stewarded by the community.

Rainbow Sweets Cafe and Bakery opened in April 1976, serving Marshfield as a community hub: local eatery, gathering space and a bright spot to catch up with neighbors and visitors. Rainbow Sweets closed for the winter in 2019, and was unable to open the following May, as usual.

During the pandemic, Rainbow Sweets owners Bill Tecosky and his wife Trish Halloran announced they were permanently closing after 44 years. At the time, they noted they hadn’t yet decided what to do with the building.

Tecosky reached out to propose an idea for Cooperation Vermont’s next project, the purchase of the Rainbow Sweets building after hearing of the work done by Cooperation Vermont to bring the Marshfield Village Store building into the organization’s land trust. That work ensured the building is used to benefit the community in perpetuity by converting the general store and deli business to a worker owned cooperative,

Bill Tecosky said “This will ensure that our old building . . . will continue to be a community hub protected by the Cooperation Vermont Community Land Trust forever. We are excited and very happy to know that the building will be used for affordable housing and for the benefit of the community.”

Cooperation Vermont plans are for the second story housing space to be retained as affordable worker housing and the downstairs bakery space transformed into a commercial kitchen available to the community to support local food producers in preparing their goods for a commercial market.

To further anchor the space as a community hub, Cooperation Vermont is working with a Marshfield resident with a business plan to provide healthy, low cost prepared meals. The goals of the business are to address food insecurity in the area and to create more indoor spaces where residents can gather. More information will be released about the cafe business in the future.

Additionally, there is another space on the ground floor that is zoned as both commercial and residential. Cooperation Vermont will be announcing a community visioning process for how best this space could be used to meet local needs. One idea already being put forth is for it to be a shared space for people in the healing arts and could house a local apothecary.

Michelle Eddleman McCormick, director for Cooperation Vermont and general manager for Marshfield Village Store says, “It is critical for spaces key to the overall community’s ability to thrive be pulled off the speculative market and put to use serving local needs. It is equally important that those spaces are cooperatively managed by members of the community.”

The idea of cooperative governance goes back a long way in Marshfield. The town of 1,800 is a blend of longtime residents, many whose families scratched out homesteads on the hills and supported one another as they fed Marshfield and areas beyond for over 150 years. They were joined more recently by newcomers who started arriving in the 1960s. Now, in the face of climate and political concerns, residents new and old are coming together to ensure a resilient, nourishing and capable town, for those just passing through, making it their new home, and those with streets named after their families, said a Cooperation Vermont press release.

Cooperation Vermont was formed in 2022, with the mission to build economic and environmental democracy. The vision is to shift away from extractive systems of economic development and collectively create self-sufficient, resilient communities with thriving, ecological sustainable economies.

Ongoing development is planned for the Rainbow Sweets building, with the initial focus being a commercial kitchen space. Fundraising will begin this year for renovations on the cafe and kitchen spaces, says Cooperation Vermont.

Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.

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