September 29, 2026
By Lauren Belski for the Family Support Committee
Earlier this year, the Family Support Committee formed to take on the task of making the post-Covid Coop more family friendly. If you are a parent from the before times who knew the bulk bagging room when it was full of toddlers, wooden blocks and beautiful books, and if your kid made unlikely friends there while drooling contentedly on a bagel, then you know what was lost at the Coop was more than just the ability for families with young children to complete their shifts or shop without having to haul their children around the tight aisles. But our committee has acknowledged that sometimes you just have to buy your pre-bagged beans and keep going. So here we are.
Our committee’s focus has been finding alternative support for families with children aged ten and under (about 1,700-2,000 members). Below are the most viable solutions we identified:
- Parental Leave in Shift # Instead of Calendar Year – Parents are currently exempt from 12 months of shifts for each child that joins their family. This amounts to 8 total shifts per household per calendar year. We propose that parental leave should instead be measured by shifts instead of months. Families would instead receive 14 shift credits to use at their discretion to support them throughout their early years of parenting in the coop. This allows for more flexibility for families and is the easiest change to make at the GM level.
- Offsite Childcare Pods and Playdates – Currently, there are too many legal hurdles involved in this idea, but our dream is for member families living in close proximity to create at-home pods that would provide coop kids a place to go while their parents worked and would allow babysitters the opportunity for shift credit. We hoped to create space for community building among member families, but the same legal restraints regarding licensing and insurance that prevented us from being able to reopen the childcare room are at play here.
- Gift a Shift Program – The Gift a Shift Program is a more universal proposal, one that acknowledges the fact that as members of the same food cooperative, we are our own family, and as such, it’s good to share with and help others in need. As members, we already have the ability to give shift credit to other members, but this program would allow gifters to post extra shifts to a collective bank, and for takers (anyone in need, not just parents) to utilize one when in a pinch. (There is still much to work out, including the predetermined limit/year.) Perhaps gifters could be rewarded in some sense, much like how the people who ride Citi Bikes from crowded docks to less crowded ones receive redeemable points. This idea requires a separate committee, as well as some programming and coding to establish a system on our shared network. Anyone who is interested in pursuing this, reach out and let us know!
Each of these solutions—and many that didn’t make the report—are grounded in a mutual love and respect for our fellow members and the desire for the Coop to be a vibrant place where people of all backgrounds, at any age, can thrive.
After careful consideration, The Family Support Committee is working with the GM to change our leave policy to award families 14 shifts, instead of 12 months of leave. While this doesn’t bring the childcare room back or the beautiful, multigenerational, joyous space it fostered, it does at least offer more relief for working family members as they struggle to strike a balance between finding available shifts and working them while caring for their children.
In terms of options 2 and 3, although the Coop cannot formally put them into action right now, we will be creating a Google Group where members can post about shift swaps, look for babysitters and share clothes and materials to other members who may be in need. If you are interested in joining, please contact us at the email address below.
The GM mandated term for our committee expires on September 30, but we will be continuing to draft a formal proposal for option 1 in the coming months.
Our goal is to continue nurturing member families so the next generation of Brooklyn kids can grow up and love this place.
Thanks for putting your trust in us!
For comments please reach out to Lauren Belski and Brian Russ, chairs of the Family Support Committee, at psfcfamilysupport@gmail.com.