FOUR CO-CYCLISTS REFLECT
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Hendrix Berry
Oct 13, 2014
"Let us be lovers we'll marry our fortunes together.
I've got some real estate here in my bag."
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner's pies
And we walked off to look for America
—Simon & Garfunkel, "America"
I've got some real estate here in my bag."
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner's pies
And we walked off to look for America
—Simon & Garfunkel, "America"
The summer after I turned twenty-one, I joined the Co-Cycle collective "to look for America," and rode my bike across the country visiting cooperative businesses. We found countless Americas. The most resonant scenes showed me that deep democracy is possible and much more, that the seeds of that society have already been planted. I also learned that those seeds are intensely lacking nourishment and institutional support. There's a lot of work to be done, and that should be exciting, not discouraging, because, yes, it can be done. As an undergraduate Economics student at Earlham College, a small liberal arts Quaker school in Indiana, I learned to break down my Economics education and separate its virtues from its flaws. By my junior year, I was dissatisfied with deconstruction and was anxious to find solutions for constructing a just economy that actually worked well for everyone. Beyond demanding it, I wanted to know exactly how that economy might work. I looked to cooperatives, a part of my own cultural heritage in Iowa farming, for a beginning place. |
I listened to Simon & Garfunkel's "America" over and over in my childhood. I grew up feeling that loving America was a necessary but sad and desolate romance. The iterations of the cooperative model that I saw on Co-Cycle gave me the courage to hope for more and fantasize about real alternatives. |
Feeling our own power biking and with wide eyes, feeling the people power between Seattle and Boston, we visited diverse neighborhoods, towns, and cities, not just to look, but to learn how communities were collectivizing to take control of their own economic circumstances.
Cooperativists are constantly grappling with the logical question, “If cooperatives are so great, why are there so few?” Every cooperative we visited was struggling to creatively work around or barrel through traditional capitalist institutional and cultural barriers. Each co-op had arisen in order to address a common need that was not being resolved by the market, such as healthy food, dignified jobs, or people-centered finance. Lack of technical expertise in cooperative development and lack of available funding meant that many of the small cooperatives that we visited could not attain the scale necessary to affect powerful change. Because of these barriers, the co-op model has more often been a way for people to survive traditional capitalism with their heads above water than a strategy for broad-based transformation. However, there are many cooperatives reaching for the latter. Three in particular stand out to me now—the multi-stakeholder Fifth Season Cooperative in Viroqua, WI, the federated River West Cooperative Alliance in Milwaukee, WI, and the New Era Windows worker cooperative in Chicago, IL. These cooperatives sparked my imagination and inspired me to think bigger and work harder. You can read more about them and others we visited here. When I returned to school for my senior year, I wrote my economics thesis about the productivity advantages and challenges of labor-controlled firms. People are smart enough to generate democratically organized businesses that are not only as productive as their investor-owned or privately held counterparts, but that surpass them in productivity, both by traditional standards and by the standards of social justice and morality. Our economy distributes wealth and power to the wrong places, and I know we can do better than this. I biked across the country, something I didn't know I could do until I was halfway back to Boston. As one might guess, I set off to look for America while looking for myself, and found a million kinds of both. I learned that I'm made of more than I thought and that, yes, "another world is possible." |
Charlotte Cadieux
Sept 24, 2014
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One night, a month before college graduation, my eyes shot open to the darkness. I knew that instead of going to the French summer program I was signed up to attend before graduate school, I needed to join the bike tour my new housemates were organizing. I often look back on that moment as one of the single most important moments of my life.
The following morning I went downstairs and asked my housemates over breakfast if I could ride across country with them. “Of course!” they replied. The decision terrified me. “Can I actually do this?” I thought. Turns out with a little help from my friends, I could. I have come to realize that my story of Co-Cycle is also the story of the cooperative movement. Co-Cycle was a collective effort. The day-to-day was up to all of us to make possible. Water, food, shelter, direction, was everyone’s responsibility. Throughout the summer we rotated the roles of route organizer, event planner, cook, camp set up and break down, laundry and cleaning. We each contributed to our function as a community but the larger scale logistics and planning tended to fall heavily in the hands of a few, powerful individuals. The experience of working with this group to bring our shared vision into being allowed me to find value in something that is greater than myself and deeper than just business for monetary gain, a common thread throughout the coops we were visiting. We had our challenges. In addition to finding roads, we had to navigate our interpersonal needs and dynamics, which, at times 18 strong, posed logistical challenges as well. Meetings happened anywhere and everywhere, and no matter what, we were always together. The value of the experience was immeasurable in terms of the capabilities we developed along the way. I still use the same bike everyday. By the end of the summer my concept of challenge and accomplishment shifted. After a ride like Co-Cycle, roads are accessible and miles are relative. But it was the ability to overcome individual and collective challenges simultaneously, and embody the changes we wished to see, that truly impacted my life. Bearing witness to the commitment of my peers to work that they value, awakened in me the motivation to commit myself and dedicate my life to work that is meaningful to me. I heard this echoed throughout cooperatives across the United States, and it is what I believe to be the strength and purpose of the cooperative movement. While most coops have a financial buy-in, members, owners, and workers must also buy into a system of shared responsibility. Co-Cycle taught this lesson literally in the way we worked to meet our daily needs. The impact of our shared experience has become my individual epicenter for the change I wish to see in myself and the world. We saw this reflected in the larger cooperative movement as many co-ops have common origins. They would form from a desire to shift a practice or to meet a need in a way that embodied the values of the community it served. While Co-Cycle did not form to meet a community need, the experience of moving ourselves across the country while working collectively, allowed us to become the medium of our message. Through this experience I became connected with people and a way of living that gives me happiness and hope. Our collective effort to overcome challenge, combined with the grace and commitment of all the people we met along the way, taught me that I have the power to change myself, and the world around me. |
Margo Dalal
Sept 20, 2014
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After working for a year at Hampshire College's small cooperative market and diving into the world of social entrepreneurship, I figured riding a bike across the country for the summer would be a productive way to feed my desire to learn more about cooperatives, and prove I could do something as crazy as ride a few thousand miles with people I had never met.
The beauty of our group was that we all wanted to learn and advocate for cooperatives, and were able to experience firsthand just how difficult it can be to cooperate. We were a multi-stakeholder cooperative where the same people played all the different membership roles. We shared food, bike tools, health supplies, housing, money, and work. On top of that, we depended on each other for our safety while biking. After our many visits to different cooperatives, we often found ourselves comparing their experiences to our own, and learning how different people confronted conflict. It was difficult, but we did together what we, as mostly inexperienced bikers, could not have done alone. Cooperatives are structured for people to collectively address a need in their lives and in their communities. Each cooperative that we met and visited with had their own experience of working together to address a collective need. The cooperatives ranged in scale and in sectors, from recreation to disability services to real estate, but nonetheless designed creative solutions to needs in their communities that could not be met by individuals working alone. Center Point Counseling began in 2011 when a group of mental health professionals realized that their clinic was going to be closed. Their practice had been one of several branches of a clinic run by a board of administrative executives in a nearby city. During the recession, the doctors had to deal with cuts in programming, benefits, and even loss of jobs. The doctors formed a cooperative to run their own practice. Without having to pay the executive board expensively high salaries, the cooperative is better able to serve the rural community in Viroqua and offer a wider range of services. The doctors, not the businessmen knew best how to practice medicine.
We saw two health-related cooperatives operating to address a collective need for affordable access to good food and good counseling services in the small towns of Missoula, MT and Viroqua, WI. The Missoula Community Food Co-op was formed after the 2004 Missoula County Food Assessment identified a need for access to fresh and healthy food. By 2005, early members of the cooperative decided to follow the consumer-member-run model based on the Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn. Since the Missoula Food Co-op is almost entirely kept up by its members, the Co-op is able to live up to its mission and provide its members with good and inexpensive food. Fresh, healthy food should be accessible to everyone and the consumer coop model, especially when member-run, is a creative way to make that food affordable. As we toured through urban areas, new sets of problems that communities faced began to emerge: In Minneapolis large corporations, gentrifying-type businesses, and liquor stores threatened the neighborhood and the local businesses. The East Side Food Co-op members decided to do something about it. They formed the Northeast Investment Cooperative, which collectively bought and managed a block of storefront for retail in the neighborhood, and leased these buildings to local businesses. Visiting these cooperatives, which were so diverse in the collective needs they addressed, showed me how cooperatives and collectives make it possible to create new and creative solutions to economic and social injustices that our country faces. In the wake of what I hope is a beginning to national economic and social reform, these examples of successful cooperative businesses can serve as models for other communities to look to. After my summer with Co-Cycle, I know I will be looking to them too. [Read more about the cooperatives Margo highlights, and others from the Co-Cyclist trip, here.] |
Leah Grossman
Sept 24, 2014
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I decided to join Co-Cycle halfway through their journey. I debated if I had saved enough money, and whether I was up for the physical and mental challenge of powering myself across a portion of the country while operating cooperative and collectively with friends, classmates, and friends-to-be.
In retrospect, it was the best decision I could have made and it inspired me with hope for the future of the cooperative business model. Our mission was to power ourselves across the country while meeting cooperative businesses along the way in celebration of the International Year of Cooperatives. Since the organizing phase, Co-Cycle brought co-ops together. After visiting so many co-ops across the country, it was incredible to hear an underlying story emerge. Each co-op was inherently connected to the previous co-op we visited, but unique because of it’s local community needs. Co-ops spring up to address problems. Whether it be local conflict in a small community, or addressing global issues of food access and resources, on a very basic level, co-ops attempt to change how groups of people interact with their greater environment. Cooperatives in each community directly reflect the local and regional culture of the area. They reflect the needs of the community as well as the resources (both of the earth and of people) of the region. After every cooperative visit, both sides experienced a renewed sense of energy. We cyclists were invigorated to keep biking and sharing their stories and passion, and they were energized to keep working from hearing ours. It became a snowball of cooperative stories as we rolled across the country; gaining momentum as we moved east. One of the most moving stories we encountered was at Center Point Counseling in Viroqua, Wisconsin. We met with Kevin Schmidt, who shared the story about how he helped to create the “first centralized mental health cooperative in the nation.” By eliminating the overhead costs of a hierarchical structure, they are able to serve their community. They are incredibly proud of the work they do and operate with intentionality, and openness to learn new skills. |
We were 15 sweaty bikers sitting on various surfaces in their small waiting room listening and were all brought to tears. |
The community had a clear need that Center Point had formed to address, while supporting the needs of their team.
Sharing stories of co-ops we visited became an important part of our journey. When we heard about one co-ops struggle, we were able to offer advice and the contact information of a co-op that had overcome a similar situation. In the digital age, these stories are being shared infinitely more. A supporter from the start, The Toolbox for Education and Social Action (TESA) is all about cooperative education. They also know how to make it engaging for everyone. The creators of “Coopoly” address the need to spread the word about co-ops and are successful by making it fun! As a player of some of the prototype Coopoly games, it was inspiring to see it on a number of shelves of co-ops we visited. While hearing about how each co-op was formed, there was a commonality between the people involved with co-ops. Cooperatives are inherently different than shareholder companies because instead of profit, they are focused on people. They are not only focused on their mission, they are focused on HOW they achieve that mission by keeping their members' needs a priority. This also explains why they stick around even during economic downturn. The community is invested in the success of the co-op. At each co-op we visited we met people who were excited and proud of their city, their community, and their workplace; and they were very enthusiastic to share that pride with us. Historically co-ops sprung up at times of great need. Whether through agriculture to share machinery, resources, and space; or in urban areas that lacked access to that agriculture, cooperatives are historically not what they are stereotyped to be today. Co-Cycle reflected that co-ops exist in a diversity of areas addressing a variety of problems. The Future of Co-ops Looking towards the future of co-ops, I can imagine that they will only grow exponentially. With each new cooperative business that opens, it supports the local cooperative economy, and ideally, has broken ground for cooperative businesses to spring up. From the perspective of my local cooperative economy, in Austin, TX, the growth of co-ops is beginning to be reflected in the local government. The city is learning about how co-ops interact with the economy and are beginning to train city employees in how the law applies to cooperatives. |