?The Center for Public Policy and Administration will host a talk on Tuesday, November 16, from 2:30-4 p.m. in Gordon Hall about the potential of Cleveland’s Evergreen Cooperatives for creating jobs and building economic democracy in other U.S. cities, including nearby Springfield.
The talk, “Cleveland’s Evergreen Cooperatives: Is This a Model for Springfield?,” is also sponsored by the Center for Popular Economics, the Pioneer Valley Project, the Political Economy Research Institute, the Department of Economics, Western Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, and the Labor Center.
Two architects of the Evergreen initiative, Ted Howard and Jim Anderson, will be the featured speakers at the talk. Howard is the founder and executive director of The Democracy Collaborative, a project at the University of Maryland, and was recently appointed as the Steven Minter Senior Fellow for Social Justice at The Cleveland Foundation.
Anderson is the program coordinator for the Ohio Employee Ownership Center, an initiative at Kent State University, and business manager of the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry.
Howard and Anderson will talk about the philosophy and founding of the Evergreen Cooperatives, which began when several downtown Cleveland anchor institutions—including a hospital, a university, a community foundation, and a local bank–worked with the surrounding low-income community to help launch a number of worker-owned businesses.
Today, the Evergreen Cooperatives include a $5.7 million state-of-the-art green laundry, a solar installation company, a community newspaper, and a multi-block hydroponic greenhouse aimed at providing farm fresh produce to food retailers, wholesalers, and food service companies.
The Evergreen model aims to revitalize a local economy from the “ground up,” creating living wage jobs that also help to build wealth and assets in local communities.
A video about the Evergreen Cooperatives is available on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt_ZHUDhKjs.
Howard and Anderson will also speak at a public forum from 7-8:30 p.m. on November 16 at Christ Church Cathedral (35 Chestnut Street) in Springfield.
Both the UMass and Springfield events are open to the public. For additional information, contact Fred Rose (frose@pubpol.umass.edu) or Emily Kawano (Emily@populareconomics.org).