My name is Jonathan Jones. I’m a 52-year-old father of eight, U.S. Army veteran (ARNG, 11B/15A), 21 years I.T. developer. I was the child of missionaries in Tanzania — no television until 13, so I read a lot, and I’m good at chess. I’ve spent 40+ years thinking and nine years building a cooperative commerce platform called Liana Banyan.

I’m not famous. I’m not a James Beard Award winner. I’m just someone who wants what SHOULD be good to ACTUALLY be GOOD. The systems we have aren’t protecting or helping people well enough, and arguably are part of the problem. So I’ve designed different ones.

One of those systems is called Let’s Get Groceries.

Everything I understand about the power of food came from watching you work.

Let’s Get Groceries is our food access initiative. The goal: make sure people can afford nutritious food, source it locally when possible, and never have to choose between groceries and rent.

The philosophy is your philosophy:

• Food is infrastructure, not charity
• Local kitchens can do what centralized systems can’t
• Speed matters — bureaucracy kills
• Treat people with dignity, not as recipients of pity

You built World Central Kitchen on a simple insight: restaurants already have kitchens, cooks, and distribution networks. In a crisis, they can mobilize faster than any government agency.

Let’s Get Groceries takes that insight and applies it to the everyday hunger that doesn’t make headlines. The family that runs out of food three days before payday. The elderly person who can’t get to a grocery store. The neighborhood where the only options are dollar stores and fast food.

We build local food networks. We connect small farms to nearby tables. We use the same Cost + 20% economics to make groceries affordable and keep suppliers fairly paid.

Liana Banyan is a cooperative platform in which three commercial divisions — .com, .biz, and .net — drive sustained funding for the .org charitable initiatives. All the time, by design, sustainable beyond our lifetimes because of the infrastructure we build that operates far beyond us.

The economic principle is simple: Cost + 20%. Creators keep 80%+ of every transaction. The platform takes 20% to fund operations, and 100% of charitable funds go directly to the people doing the work.

Let’s Get Groceries is one of sixteen initiatives:

• Let’s Make Dinner — meal preparation and delivery (led by Maneet Chauhan)
• JukeBox — music licensing where artists keep 80%+
• Defense Klaus — protection for domestic abuse survivors
• VSL — microfinance for people the banks won’t touch
• Lifeline Medications — affordable prescriptions

Each one supports the others. Let’s Make Dinner needs groceries. Let’s Get Groceries needs kitchen partners. The meal providers need microloans to start their businesses. The whole system interlocks.

You’ve always understood this. WCK isn’t just about meals — it’s about activating local economies, training local chefs, leaving infrastructure behind when you leave. That’s exactly what we’re building.

I want you to be the Provisioner Mentor — the Crown of Let’s Get Groceries.

Every initiative in Liana Banyan operates as a council. The Crown is the First Seat — the leader, the tie-breaker, the voice on our Steering Committee. As the council grows with workers and members, they elect their own representative to the Board of Directors. In the early days, that representative would likely be you.

What the Crown includes:

What I’d ask of you:

• Review our Let’s Get Groceries architecture
• Tell me what’s wrong with it (you’ve fed millions, you know what works)
• Advise on the intersection with Let’s Make Dinner (you and Maneet Chauhan would be natural partners)
• Bring your network of chefs and restaurants who might want to participate
• Be the voice that says “food is infrastructure”

You could have stayed in fine dining. You had the restaurants — ThinkFoodGroup, Jaleo, minibar, Zaytinya. You had the awards — two James Beards, a National Humanities Medal. You could have cooked for presidents and called it a career.

Instead, after Haiti, you drove your catering truck to the National Mall and fed people for free. After that, you never stopped.

WCK has now served over 350 million meals across more than 30 countries. Not through bureaucracy. Through speed, trust, and local partnerships.

You said: “We don’t wait for permission. We just start cooking.”

I need people who don’t wait for permission. I need people who understand that hunger doesn’t pause for paperwork. I need people who can look at a broken food system and say “we can fix this” — and then actually fix it.

You’re that person.

I’ve also written to Maneet Chauhan for Let’s Make Dinner. You and Maneet would be natural partners — she’s building the meal delivery side, you’d be building the grocery sourcing side. Two initiatives, one food system.

I’ve also written to Jessica Jackley of Kiva for our VSL microfinance initiative. Some of your local restaurant partners might need small loans to expand or survive between disasters. VSL could provide that capital.

The whole platform is designed so the initiatives support each other. You wouldn’t be leading an isolated project — you’d be part of an ecosystem of hundreds that lead thousands to benefit millions. Check out the structure and connections at Cephas.LianaBanyan.com/The300.

I’ve included two documents for your review:

1. The Considered Approach — An academic paper outlining the theoretical and economic foundations of Liana Banyan. This is the “why” behind the architecture.

2. Let’s Get Groceries Business Plan — The operational blueprint for the initiative you’d be leading. This is the “how.”

Read them. Check out the implementations at LianaBanyan.org and pick them apart. Tell me what breaks with the feedback tool or contact me directly by email or phone.