The Bountiful Basket food cooperative should be opening a chapter in Chadron early next year.

Diana  Lecher of Chadron Community Hospital Wellness Coordinator Diana Lecher says she’s been asked about it a number of times in recent years and finally has time in her life to move forward on the suggestion.

Lecher describes Bountiful Baskets as a grassroots, all-volunteer, no-catch  co-op that brings in produce, organic produce, artisan bread, and sandwich bread every week.

Since the local chapters of Bountiful Baskets have no employees, volunteers handling the preparation and distribution of the baskets…which allows members to get what Lecher calls “rock-bottom prices” for the food.

She says the goal isn’t just healthy food at low prices, but also doing it in a way that has as little impact as possible on the environment of the world by purchasing produce and bread as close to home as possible.

For more exotic items that have to come from other countries, purchases are still as close as possible. Bananas, for example, come from Mexico instead of Central America.

Lecher is pleased with the response she’s received so far. Bountiful Baskets wanted the e-mail addresses of at least 30 people just to consider coming to Chadron, and she passed that the first day.

She’s now getting closer and closer to the unofficial maximum of 100 members…generally considered the logistical cutoff for the weekly deliveries.  Lecher hopes to have everything set up in time to have the first food shipments to Chadron arrive in mid-January.

Those interested in Bountiful Baskets can contact Lecher at Chadron Community Hospital, and they can go to the group’s website…boundifulbaskets.org…for more general information. The website also has recipes and cooking ideas for the fresh food offered through the group.