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Staff Celebrity Spotlight: Renee Champion
Title: Ambler sandwich-station manager
Where she’s from & lives now: North Philly
Education: 2005 graduate of Freire Charter School, she completed studies to be a medical assistant through Colorado University online and also took classes in medical administration through CU.
Family facts: She and her man, Jerrell, have two kids — Jamere, 11 and Jaiannah, 4.
Her Weavers Way timeline: Hired as a cashier for the Co-op’s Ogontz store in 2008, and later did some food prep there. When Ogontz closed in 2011, she moved to the Mt. Airy store, where she was a sandwich maker before transitioning to Prepared Foods. She left in 2014, a few months after her daughter was born.
How she got back to the Co-op: After not working for a year, she got a series of food-service jobs, including at Philadelphia University, Penn State Abington and Cooper University Hospital in Camden. When she found out the Co-op was opening in Ambler, she put in an application.
So, how’s being back? “It feels great. . . . I always felt like Weavers Way was a good place to work. For the couple of months I’ve been here, it’s been nothing but stress off my shoulders.”
What she likes about the Co-op: “Just the community, the intimacy of working with the community itself, and learning about different ways to eat, how to be healthy. Seeing a place come together as one.”
Favorite Co-op products: Local apples, Samuels & Son seafood. She also enjoys the gluten-free products produced by Applegate Farms, which she buys for a cousin who has celiac disease.
And long-term? “My plan is to actually retire from Weavers Way. Being that I’m 30 now, I feel like I got to the place where food is where it’s at. No matter how many times I went back to school for medical, and I worked in the service of medical, I still seem to find my way back to food service.”
A li’l help? Renee is looking for a three-bedroom home in Northwest Philly. If you have any leads, email kplourde@weaversway.coop.
— Karen Plourde