The Co-op is governed by a board, and everyone on the board is a community member or staff member and a Co-op owner.  Anyone who is an owner can run for the board, and every owner gets to vote for board members every year.

Board Members are committed to representing the Co-op’s owners, and voicing the values and goals of Co-op members. The main responsibilities of the board are to:

– Set the goals and values of the co-op (learn more here).

– Hire a General Manager, and evaluate their performance.

– Hold the GM accountable for the overall success of Co-op.

Our Co-op is built by Durham and dedicated to serving Durham. The Board exists so the Durham Co-op Market can achieve the most for its Owners and the Durham community!

Board Members

Summer Alston (summer@durham.coop)

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.

John Bonvechio (john@durham.coop)

John works as a fundraiser for the University of North Carolina 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.

Josh Collier (josh@durham.coop)

Josh has worked at the Co-op for over 5 years and joined the board in February 2020. With more than a decade of experience working with cheese and specialty products, Josh Collier, the DCM Prepared Foods Manager, is the big cheese around here. Josh has spent the last 11 years working in the cheese industry – beginning in 2008 at Paxton and Whitfield in London. Fun Fact: Paxton and Whitfield holds the royal warrants to Buckingham Palace – which means that Josh has supplied cheese to the royal family!

Josh became a Certified Cheese Professional with the American Cheese Society in 2020 and spoke as on of the official cheesemongers at the Annual American Cheese Society Conference in 2022. We are so lucky to have him.

Donna Frederick (donna@durham.coop)

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.

Lenore Hill (lenore@durham.coop)

Lenore was born in Durham and lived here for 14 years. She studied computer science at Duke and worked in IT for 18 years. Lenore now spends most of her time making and shipping jewelry ordered from her Etsy shop and enjoys painting, learning Spanish, and playing her ukuleles when she can squeeze it in. She also serves as President of the Durham FM Association (amateur radio).

Lenore lives in Hillsborough, with her husband, Jack. Formerly a blogger who primarily wrote about the Durham and Orange County restaurant scene, she loves baking and Jack’s vegetarian cooking. She really loves cheese.

Kim Ionescu (kim@durham.coop)

Kim, our Board president, 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 trade group for the coffee industry, as its Chief Sustainability and Knowledge Development Officer. Having had a sustainability job title for the past fifteen years, Kim is skeptical of simple, one-size-fits-all solutions, but she believes that cooperatives offer an important alternative 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.

David Mendel (contact coming soon)

David joined the Board of Directors in 2023. David has been a resident of Durham for approximately 5 years and lives in the Lakewood area, walking distance from the Co-op.

A retired accountant by profession, David’s career has almost entirely been devoted to serving nonprofits and organizations that promote community stability and opportunity.

More recently, in his retirement, David has begun to live out something he’s dreamed of for years. With a long-held love of cooking, he’s taken on a role in a local restaurant. David is enjoying sharing his passion for cooking with an experienced team of chefs and learning and growing his culinary skills with this wonderful team of professionals.

David is excited to serve on the Co-op Board to help ensure the community has a stable source of quality food and that we continue to promote equity, inclusiveness, and diversity in our community.