YS Community Foundation Program Manager Chloe Manor is pictured at the mic at last week’s town hall in First Presbyterian Church. Behind her are, from left, YSCF Director Jeannamarie Cox, YSCF board member David Butcher and YS Community Market Interim Project Manager Kumar Jensen. (Photo by Reilly Dixon)
Yellow Springs Community Market co-op timeline takes shape
- Published: April 27, 2026
Yellow Springs Community Foundation staffers and local stakeholders are pushing ahead with plans to facilitate the transition of Tom’s Market into a community-owned, cooperatively-run downtown grocery store.
Should those plans be actualized, village and area residents could one day buy shares in the store, have a say in how it operates and, as co-op proponents and organizers have suggested, help to ensure that Yellow Springs retains a viable downtown grocery store for years to come.
“Our number one goal is to keep a thriving grocery open for many more generations,” YS Community Foundation staffer Chloe Manor said at a town hall discussion Wednesday, April 15. “It’s of the utmost importance to the vibrancy for our community — it supports the people who live here, our local economy and our sense of community as well.”
A fully-formed co-op is a ways away, Manor and others said at the town hall — at least two years.
In the meantime, the foundation must finalize its purchase of the store from the Gray family, hire a general — and possibly an interim — store manager, create a steering committee, conduct feasibility studies, solicit community investment and, in time, sell the store to its member-owners.
Should everything go according to the foundation’s plans and there’s ample local buy-in, Tom’s Market will become the Yellow Springs Community Market.
“We’re in a great place in our timeline right now,” Interim Project Manager Kumar Jensen said at Wednesday’s town hall, noting that many of the next steps are already being taken concurrently.
The foundation is currently conducting a national search to hire a general manager of the eventual co-op, with applications due Monday, May 4. As Jensen explained, the ideal candidate will be able to lead the grocery store’s staff and respond to the dictates of an eventual board of elected store member-owners. Already, Jensen said, the foundation has gotten “strong applications,” mostly from local and regional residents.
Once hired, the general manager will assume a lot of the duties being relinquished by outgoing store owner Jeff Gray who took reins from his father — the store’s namesake — in 2022.
As Jensen stated at the town hall, the foundation is poised to finalize the purchase of Tom’s Market in mid-June. Foundation staffers and Gray declined to disclose the sale price.
“YSCF is funding the purchase of Tom’s through its local impact investing strategy which allows the foundation to use existing funds to invest in priority local projects, such as ensuring there is a grocery in downtown Yellow Springs, without having to incur debt,” Jensen wrote in an email to the News.
Once the Grays sell the store to the foundation, the proposed two-year timeline towards a co-op kicks off.
“We are essentially giving the community these two years — perhaps longer — to allow for a community-ownership organizing process to take place, and for the community to garner the resources it will need to purchase [the store] from the foundation,” Jensen said.
Developing a Yellow Springs-specific community ownership model will occur over several phases, Jensen explained, which are already in motion: a critical first step has been laying the groundwork for a steering committee.
Cherrelle Gardner, executive director of Co-op Dayton — a regional nonprofit the foundation hired to lead phase one efforts — sketched out what that steering committee will look like.
“This group will take the lead on gathering community interest and voices,” Gardner said at the town hall. “So, through community conversations, it will ask folks: ‘What do we want this new market to look like? How can it feasibly change? Should it stay the same? What new revenue streams should it pursue? Are new ideas — maybe like delivery services, as an example — feasible?”
According to an infographic circulated at the town hall, the foundation has three “community conversations” planned between April and July, as well as some “one-on-one conversations” with Gardner and Co-op Dayton staffers — all with the intention of populating a steering committee that will eventually be charged with drumming up local support for the co-op proposal.
Once a steering committee is established, then comes phase two: the drafting of a long-term strategy, work plan and membership goal, as well as beginning initial recruitment efforts.
Phase three drills down on feasibility. The steering committee and co-op stakeholders will conduct professional market studies, determine capital needs and draft a pro forma — or preliminary financial analysis — budget for the store.
At this point, the main off-ramp appears — if a co-op model is deemed unfeasible or unwanted, then the YS Community Market will find a different route.
“We’re considering all possibilities and alternatives if it’s a no go,” Jensen said. “We’re certainly investing a lot in this process and hope that a co-op works out, but there are other options.”
In a follow-up email, he wrote: “In the unlikely event that a co-op is unable to purchase the business after two years, YSCF is committed to ensuring the market remains stable until the right community ownership model is established.”
Should the village wish to continue pursuing and building a co-op model, then come the final phases: incorporating the business as a co-op, drafting bylaws, electing a board, launching a membership drive, hosting volunteer days, holding regular member meetings, raising any additional capital, entering into negotiations with the foundation and, ultimately, transferring ownership — this time from YSCF to the market’s members.
According to Jensen, the final form of the YS Community Market won’t look that different than the Tom’s Market of today.
Around 50 people attended the most recent town hall on Wednesday, April 15, regarding Tom’s Market’s ongoing transition into a community-owned co-op grocery store — to be dubbed the Yellow Springs Community Market. At the town hall project stakeholders and leaders broke down the timeline of this transition, which will span the next two years and involve ample community input. (Photo by Reilly Dixon)
“The goal of the YSCM is to remain a full-service grocery store,” he told town hall attendees. “It’s not going to suddenly turn into some niche market that only serves a particular kind of food. Our goal is to continue to have the quality and type of food and options of products available that we have now.”
Per past News reporting, the wheels began turning toward a co-op last fall, when the YS Community Foundation stepped in to ensure that the village would retain its longtime grocery, following Gray’s anticipated retirement.
Those plans were buoyed by local support vocalized at a January town hall on the co-op prospect, as well as through a public survey that gauged community interest in a co-op transition. Of the 280 unique responses to the survey, 269 people responded favorably to Tom’s going the co-op route; 11 responded negatively.
Around 90% of those responders stated that “simply having a grocery store” in Yellow Springs was a top priority. Other priorities that followed included affordable product pricing, local ownership, quality and variety of products, and staff retention and fair wages.
All of those features are possible under a community ownership model, Gardner told town hall attendees last week.
“The work of the board is not to say what brand of toilet paper to sell, but rather to oversee the manager through a set of policies determined by community priorities,” she said. “Boards build adequate systems for customer feedback and staff training … and even create programs to potentially subsidize food for needy community members.”
She added: “Membership determines the personality of the co-op. The model is designed to be flexible and to give people a say in operating the store.”
To stay updated on the progress of Tom’s Market’s transition into the YS Community Market co-op, go to http://www.yscommunitymarket.com or email communitymarket@yscf.org
ED. NOTE: The deadline to apply for the general manager position at the YS Community Market has been expanded to Monday, May 4. The story has been updated from the printed version to reflect this extension.
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