John Bonvechio, Board President

John works in the non-profit community and has extensive experience in non-profit management, cooperative model education, and managing alumni boards. He wholeheartedly believes co-ops, like DCM, are models with a mission that not only aid our communities but build a better world. With interests in non-profits, education, and socially focused organizations, John was thrilled to join the DCM Board in 2021 and hopes to continue building the DCM into a pillar of Durham, where Durham-at-large, not only embraces our values as a Co-op but reflects them..

He enjoys cooking, exploring new flavors and local products, and looks forward to local peaches each summer! He also has an impressive fountain pen collection.

Donna Frederick, Vice President

Previously, Donna was a small business owner of a specialty toy store for over 20 years on 9th Street and a former online shopper for Sprouts Farmers Market.

She has served as a volunteer for Durham visitors bureau, on the Board of Trustees to Durham Area Transit for 8 years, and as an official for Board of Elections since 2005. Donna is Outreach Coordinator for a Racial Equity women’s group in Durham and participates in neighborhood empowerment and nature advocacy.

She loves outdoor venues, books, art, independent films, dogs, and connecting people to service. Donna values customer service and is sensitive and aware of cultural and personal issues at the workplace.

Debby Warren, Treasurer

In June 2019, at the CCMA conference held in Durham, I first learned about the Durham Co-op Market’s commitment to truly making and sustaining a “co-op for all of us,” with a staff that reflects and reaches out to a diverse community, pays living wages, and makes its food more accessible to limited-income residents. I was impressed by this food co-op that was taking a different road than most and was having some success.

In the summer of 2023, I moved to Durham after 40+ years in Raleigh and became a DCM member. I joined the board in early 2024 as a way to support a critical community institution and get involved in Durham.

I have spent my professional life working in community economic development in NC and the South, helping grassroots organizations grow, advocate for more public and private resources, and become stronger. I’ve worked with worker co-ops and consumer co-ops. For a long time, I’ve been curious about finding a nonprofit governance model that truly worked, and in 2008 I joined a nonprofit board based in Fayetteville, Arkansas, that used a Policy Governance Model. When that organization merged with another—also one based in Policy Governance—I joined the new organization’s board and have recently become Board Chair. I’m happy to bring my Policy Governance experience to DCM and curious about how it works in a different context.

For the past 15 years, I’ve worked as a consultant with nonprofit organizations of all shapes and sizes, mostly focused on affordable housing, racial equity, childcare, youth in crisis, climate change, and rural development.

I am so pleased to be a newish member of DCM’s board and to help strengthen the co-op for our members and our community.

Diane Standaert, Secretary

I love the Durham Co-op and want to see it thrive for many years to come.  I am particularly interested in helping steward the hard, but important, work of a member-owned, community-rooted institution. Having such institutions, especially for something as critical for our food, is necessary for the vibrancy and resiliency of our local economy. Additionally, the Co-op has been such an important community gathering space over the years, both through organized events like the $3 community dinners to impromptu gatherings with friends and family on the outside patio. I look forward to supporting the Co-op’s efforts to create more opportunities for people to be able to buy what they need, to gather, and connect in new, innovative ways.

In the early days of the Co-op’s development, I volunteered as a member of the site selection committee to help scout and assess potential locations for the physical store. I also have experience serving on a range of all-volunteer governing boards, including during law school, for the city of Durham, for a local civil rights organization, and for associations in my profession. Finally, in both my professional and personal capacity, I have been engaged in a range of community-driven development initiatives, thus bringing experience in both in community development finance and in community organizing.

I lived in Durham for 13 years, and then moved away in 2019 for work-related reasons. I moved back in May 2024, ready to come home to this incredibly special place. In reflecting on how to best re-connect and give back to Durham at this moment in time, the opportunity to serve on the Co-op Board stands out as most well aligned in terms of my interests and skills. I am very excited about contributing to the future of such a critical locally-owned institution, food source, and gathering space for our community.

Kim Ionescu

Kim has lived most of her life between Durham and Chapel Hill, and she has spent most of her career in the coffee industry, starting with a barista job she took post-college when she found out the Regulator Bookshop wasn’t hiring. Though Kim didn’t drink coffee at the time, she got addicted to learning about coffee growing, coffee history, and all of the nuances of the trade that make coffee a vehicle for environmental and social change in a way that is different to most other foods. Her interest brought her to Counter Culture Coffee, where she spent the better part of a decade at the intersection of sustainability and procurement for the company as it grew from a regional to a national brand, and since 2015, Kim has worked for the Specialty Coffee Association, a non-profit that supports the global coffee industry. She believes that cooperatives offer an important  model for businesses of all sorts, from farming to grocery to banking, and she has been an owner of the Durham Co-op Market since its earliest days.

Kim lives in Durham with her husband, Kieran, and two daughters, Adelaide and Winifred.

Summer Alston

Summer’s passion is Durham, and she embraces all the Bull City’s grit and greatness. Through her leadership of the City of Durham General Services Department’s – Arts, Culture and Sustainable Communities Division, Summer seeks to maximize the ways in which the private and public sectors collaborate to make Durham a resilient community, and a model for the region and beyond. The experience of every human in Durham is very personal to Summer.

Summer has previously worked in private real estate development, for the North Carolina Department of Commerce, and for Duke University, as well as leading Downtown economic development for the City of Durham from 2014 to early 2021.

A Soul City, Warren County, North Carolina native, Summer now considers Durham home. She is a proud mom to Brenna and Obren, and life-mate to Bobby.

A Tar Heel through and through, Summer holds a Master’s Degree in City and Regional Planning, and dual Bachelor of Arts degrees from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Thomas Beckett

What do you want to serve on the Durham Co-op Market Board of Directors?
Durham Co-op Market is the anchor of a growing cooperative community in Durham. I support our purpose as a cooperative and will work to ensure our continued success a both a grocery store and cultural hub. A co-op is enterprise made up of many people. Durham Co-op Market’s role is to support and benefit all of those people – consumer members, worker members, and our neighbors – and for all of us in turn to support the co-op. Together we do great things. Together we build a better world.

What skills, experience or training do you bring to the Board?
My career has been dedicated to the cooperative movement for nearly 20 years. As an attorney with an MBA, my work is advising and supports developing co-ops in North Carolina. I participate in national networks of cooperative developers and co-op accountants and attorneys. I served for 9 years on the board of Shared Capital Cooperative, ending in 2024. I also served for four years on the Board of the Hendersonville Community Cooperative, ending a decade ago. I have completed the Art and Science of Cooperative Development training with CooperationWorks. Among other co-ops, I have worked with Fertile Ground Food Co-op – a grocery startup – since its founding.

What experience do you have with cooperatives, grocery stores, financing, construction or business operations?
• Served several years on the Board of Hendersonville Community Cooperative.
• Among other things, work as a cooperative attorney; helped organize and lead a national professional association for co-op accountants and attorneys; a Fellow of the Sustainable Economies Law Center.
• Executive Director of Carolina Common Enterprise, a cooperative development center serving North Carolina, since 2012.
• Have attended numerous cooperative conferences, including CCMA, Up and Coming, and the Worker Cooperative National Conference.
• Served on the Board of Shared Capital Cooperative for nine years, and on the loan committee. In this role reviewed loan applications and business plans for many grocery co-ops.
• Maintain collegial relationships with the Food Co-op Initiative, National Co-op Grocers, Columinate, the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives, and the National Cooperative Business Association.

What else would you like the Co-op members to know about you?
I have lived most of my adult life in North Carolina, and most of that in Durham. My family has lived in Parkwood the last ten years. We are a family of four with two cats. I am a lazy gardener and an avid home

Anwar Simon

Point of Sale Manager, Anwar Simon, came to the Co-op after working in marketing, sales, and customer service for almost 20 years. He specifically wanted to work at a cooperative because he values what co-ops can stand for: worker’s needs being as important as Co-op customers’, in a democratic and representative environment. Anwar is one of four DCM employees with Caribbean roots, and he is proud that his experiences add to the wide variety of perspectives that the Co-op draws from to meet the needs of our community. He has grown an appreciation for coffee over the past couple of years through his relationships with our vendor partners and is always excited to learn more about this craft and its supply chain!

Frank Stasio

I am a founding board member who helped to bring DCM from an aspiration to a brick-and-mortar business and neighbor in the Durham Community. I have watched the Co-op grow and thrive for many years as a happy customer and proud owner. I would like to become active again to do my part to ensure its continued success.

Beyond my experience as a former board member, I am a professional communicator and hope that my skills in that area would contribute to the success of the Co-op.

I live in Durham with my wife, two grown children, four grandchildren and mother.

Steph Carter

Grocery Manager. Steph moved to Durham from Brooklyn, NY and worked as a mail sorter at a United Postal Service. After that he worked at a McAlister’s Deli as a Deli Clerk, Kitchen Prep and Customer Service. Steph loves comic books, movies based on comic books, sports (Go Patriots!) and anything to do with science and space.

Neisha Reynolds

Why do you want to serve on the Durham Co-op Market Board of Directors?

I’ve lived in Durham for eight years and joined the coop around the same time – after being actively involved in co-ops and food justice in Minneapolis.  I’ve always been interested in committing time and talent here.  Now that my child is older and more independent,  I’m available to make the investment.

What skills, experience or training do you bring to the Board?

I’ve served previously on nonprofit boards. My background is in urban affairs,  public policy and in developing equitable opportunities.
What experience do you have with cooperatives, grocery stores, financing, construction or business operations?

My primary experience with groceries and co-ops is as a member and in supporting coop startups.  I have an undergraduate degree in business and have a lot of consumer goods retail and marketing under my belt.

What else would you like the Co-op members to know about you?

I live in North Durham. And,  I’m excited to strengthen the co-op, while making it more accessible to a broader base.