BURLINGTON, Vt. — Ringing in some uplifting winter season news the United States Department of Agriculture recently announced it will award three federal grants to support the work of the Cooperative Development Institute (CDI), the Northeast’s Center for cooperative business education, training, and technical assistance.
The Institute will be awarded a $200,000 Rural Cooperative Development Grant (RCDG), a $175,000 Socially Disadvantaged Groups Grant (SDGG), and, in collaboration with Cultivating Community who was the lead applicant, a $45,000 grant from the USDA’s 2501 grant tract.
The primary objective of the Institute is to improve the economic condition of rural areas in the Northeast through the development of cooperatively owned businesses. Doug Clopp, Director of Development and Communications at the Institute, highlighted the significance of the Center’s breadth and scope in the region, which the recent USDA grants will help support. “CDI stands out for its ability to offer technical assistance services to cooperative enterprises in seven states: VT, NH, ME, NY, CT, MA, RI,” Clopp explained,“and we’re supporting organizations across all business sectors: food, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, housing, social services, purchasing, retail, wholesale, communications, health, software, energy, arts, and more. We’re serving all categories of members as well: producer, consumer, worker, business owner, landowner, fishermen, and multi-stakeholder cooperatives. That’s a really broad, expansive impact of which we’re very proud.”
Since its founding in 1994, CDI’s technical assistance has supported the development of 153 new cooperatives and mutually-owned businesses, and supported the creation of 746 new jobs, while helping retain 693 more.
Through CDI’s USDA RCDG award entitled, Expanding Rural Economic Opportunity Through Cooperative Development, CDI will be able to continue effectively serving rural areas in the Northeast by working with eligible communities in the six New England states and New York.
In the state of Vermont, CDI was recently able to support A Perfect Seed, a newly formed multi-stakeholder cooperative based in Putney that focuses on importing and selling heirloom quinoa from Bolivia. The technical assistance, training, and support offered to Perfect Seed was made possible by CDI’s RCDG funding.
Tamara Stenn, founding member and Board President, shared details about her experience, “CDI staff did an amazing job meeting with me in person and sharing expertise as we started planning out what our co-op, A Perfect Seed, would be and do. It was my first time working with co-ops and I had a lot of questions. CDI was amazing in showing me real examples of different models and approaches. Their encouragement and nuts and bolts real life know-how helped make the formation of our co-op more positive, grounded, and cohesive.”
Worker-members of the Morrisville Food Co-operative (MoCo), another Vermont-based business supported by CDI’s Rural Cooperative Development Grant in the Green Mountain state offered their own testimonials about their experience working with the Institute, “CDI staff have gone above and beyond to understand and meet our needs,” they said, “Our success has been their priority.” Since its founding MoCo has grown to serve over 1000 households across the Lamoille Valley.
In addition to these cooperative food system achievements, VT Resident Owned Communities (VT-ROC), part of CDI’s rural co-op development program, has also had a series of recent successful outcomes. Throughout 2019, CDI assisted four manufactured housing parks in the state to become resident-owned cooperatives (ROCs). Westbury Park in Colchester, Sunset Lake Cooperative in Hinesburg, Lakeview Cooperative in Shelburne, and St. George Community Cooperative in St. George each received technical assistance from CDI and ultimately made the successful transition to cooperative resident ownership.
Before the transition to resident ownership, “most people who lived in the park owned their homes, but rented the land,” explained Sandra Jarvis, a resident and secretary of the St. George cooperative, and before the successful cooperative land purchase by residents, “many who lived in the park were worried about any increase to their expenses.”
“There are 56 homes in the Hinesburg park, and 120 in the St. George park,” Lisa Hodgkins, a longtime resident of St. George Park and cooperative treasurer explained. “Some homes have five or more people living in them. There are a lot of residents here who are on fixed incomes, who are retired, widowed, widowers, disability. A cooperative is a chance to form a more democratic community,” Hodgkins said, “Nobody knows better than the residents what needs to be addressed.”
Speaking about her work with Vermont park residents, Julia Curry, one of the VT-ROC Specialists who helped the parks during their transition shared her own perspective. “It’s been amazing to work with people who are so dedicated to their communities, “ Curry shared. “With housing costing so much in Chittenden county being able to preserve and buy the land was make or break for all of these households now that they own their parks. CDI was really proud to advise them and looks forward to more parks converting to co-op ownership in future.”
Since the fall of 2019 VT ROC has worked with multiple manufactured housing communities and has helped 920 housing units transition to resident ownership.
In other parts of the Northeast like New York’s North Country, Ward Lumber, Inc., a 4th generation family owned lumber and building materials business operating stores in Jay and Malone, is one of the businesses that will also be supported in their transition to worker ownership as a result of the USDA grant support.
Paul Mintz, a longtime employee of the Jay store Ward Lumber Pro Sales team, shared his experience working with the Institute, “CDI has been instrumental in guiding our company through the process of converting to a worker cooperative. To say they have helped us navigate these uncertain waters is an understatement; without them, I’m not sure we’d have ever understood why we wanted to leave shore at all.”
To date the Cooperative Development Institute has provided education and training programs for approximately 14,150 people throughout the Northeast. Thanks in part to the support of the recent USDA grant awards that impact will continue to grow and expand, significantly.
–Cooperative Development Institute