The town of Lynch might be small, even by Nebraska standards, but this small town has seen its share of big problems over the last few years.
In March of 2019, a wall of water and ice smashed through the Spencer Dam west of Lynch just a day after the Ponca River to the east had overflowed into the town.
“It wiped out the east end of the town. There were houses where it was probably two to three feet deep,” said David Barnes, manager of the recently opened Valley Foods Cooperative.
The flood took many things from Lynch.
The town was without power or drinking water for months, and a number of businesses, including the town's only grocery store, suffered significant damage.
The original owners of the store closed the business a year after the floods, forcing residents of Lynch to travel across the county to get their food.
“For two years routinely every Saturday, the first thing I done was get in the car and drove to Spencer to get my groceries for a whole week,” said Lynch resident Charles David Kalkowski.
The long trips for groceries were challenging for the families living in Lynch, and after two years, the community decided they needed something to change.
The old grocery store building was purchased by a local woman named Janie Fisher, while other residents searched for someone to help.
“Well, it was in November of 2020, I actually received a call on a Friday afternoon that they had lost their grocery store in March of 2020, and someone had purchased the building, and they wanted to bring the grocery store back, so what do we do next?” said Charlotte Narjes with Rural Prosperity Nebraska.
Narjes is a Nebraska Extension educator who works with Rural Prosperity Nebraska, a University of Nebraska program that focuses on advancing communities through entrepreneurship, retaining and attracting people and developing regional food systems.
Narjes thought a USDA Rural Cooperative Center Grant could be what the community needed to get the grocery back up and running, and she said they wasted no time in getting to work.
“Sunday morning, I received a call from this community that they have a steering team and can I meet on Wednesday,” said Narjes.
A plan was hatched to re-open the grocery store, with the residents of Lynch leading the way.
“We discussed that the cooperative way was the way to go,” said Barnes.
To re-open as a cooperative, the steering committee had to convince the folks in Lynch to buy in to the idea.
“Share sales had kind of stalled, but then we had a significant donation come in that got us to the number we wanted to be,” said Barnes.
With the help of the donations, grants and plenty of volunteer hours, the grocery store started to take shape.
“We met for 14 months once a week, this didn’t just happen overnight,” said Barnes.
The cooperative gathered all of the resources they needed to get the doors back open, and with the help of Narjes, the group was awarded grants to cover many of the costs of re-opening, and many residents worked on the project for years, including skilled craftsman donating their time and labor to the project.
By March of 2022, the Valley Foods Cooperative was ready for its grand opening.
“Now, I am able if I need something, it's just three blocks to the north, and I am here at the grocery store,” said Kalkowski.
Since its grand opening, operations at the Valley Foods Cooperative are running smoothly.
The store is run by one full-time and two part-time employees.
At Valley Foods Cooperative, you can find just about anything you need, and if you can't, there is even a notebook up front where you can make your own requests.
“It gives them a little sense of pride that such a thing can happen again, it’s a big deal,” said Barnes.
It's easy to hear the sense of pride and accomplishment from Barnes and other residents when they speak about re-opening the store, but they know that their hard work could have been for nothing if it wasn’t for the help of Narjes and Rural Prosperity Nebraska.
“It was important, sometimes things would stall, and we would get a little discouraged. Charlotte would help pump us up and keep us going,” said Barnes.
The grocery store isn’t just a store to shop at; for Lynch, it’s a symbol that no matter what Mother Nature throws at them, the town can come back.