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Success Stories

Smith Island, Maryland

Investing in Wastewater Infrastructure is Key to Preserving Smith Island, Maryland

For the people living on Smith Island, the water matters. But it’s about more than the beautiful views of the Chesapeake Bay from the picturesque island ten miles from the mainland. The multi‐generational residents depend on the surrounding Chesapeake Bay for their livelihoods. For many, crabbing, oystering, and ecotourism are what puts dollars in their bank accounts, and food on their tables. In rural communities…
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Search Results: 27 Stories
State Director Perry Hickman and Area Director Laurette Tucker confer with Brick Goldman (right) in the cooperative's original aggregation facility.

Small Farmers Think Big to Grow Markets for Southside Virginia Produce

Butterflies are primary pollinators for many vegetables and herbs, helping to ensure a good harvest on Virginia farms. The delicate wings that propel them from flower to flower can carry them many miles to transform the agricultural landscape. Though most closely associated… [Read More]
Cooperatives
Jen Young and Jessica Heesacker show off the Farm to Family Coop in Hay Springs, Nebraska

Farm to Family: A Labor of Love

In Hay Springs, Nebraska, customers stream into the Farm to Family cooperative grocery store. Kids in swimsuits looking for a snack, farmers grabbing a cold drink, and parents picking up the last items for dinner come and go from the little store on main street. This scene is… [Read More]
BusinessCooperativesEnergySmall Business
Peony Cooperative in Alaska

Blooming Peonies in Alaska with the Cooperative Model

Each year in October, many cooperatives pause to celebrate National Cooperative Month.  This year, the theme “Owning our Identity” focuses on what makes a cooperative different from other businesses.  For the Alaska Peony Cooperative, the cooperative model was an unlikely… [Read More]
Cooperatives
Brian Sinclair holds state shaped cutting boards

Worker-Owned Cooperative Preserves Rural Jobs in Wisconsin

With three months until the business was closing, the employees at Bemis Manufacturing were up against the clock. The owner of the wood manufacturing business was reaching retirement and needed to sell, a move that would close a 100-year-old operation and threaten the workforce… [Read More]
Cooperatives
Common Enterprise Staff

Worker Cooperative Model: Empowering Workers & Creating Community

Thomas Beckett and his team are passionate about what they do. Beckett’s resilience and persistence broke ground in North Carolina in 2012 when they opened Carolina Common Enterprise. Opening the center was a culmination of Beckett’s work as an attorney which exposed him to… [Read More]
Cooperatives
Bobbie Grubb's community becomes cooperative-owned with the help of NCF.

Rural Wisconsin Community Embraces Cooperative Homeowner Model

In 2016, Bobbie Grubb’s manufactured housing community in Wisconsin converted to a cooperative-owned model, a move that would afford residents the power to control what happens in their community for the first time. Manufactured communities, or mobile home communities, provide… [Read More]
CooperativesHomeownershipHomeownership Month 2023
Community meets to discuss creating a home care cooperative in their community

Home Care Cooperative Training Meets Pressing Need in Rural Nebraska

It started with a simple phone call. A few years ago, a woman contacted Cindy Houlden, the Cooperative Business Director at the Nebraska Cooperative Development Center, with a question about home care cooperative job opportunities. At the time, Houlden and her team were not… [Read More]
CooperativesGrantsHealth CareUnderserved
Photos of cooperative local produce

Buying local made easy - Yellowstone Valley Food Hub

The Yellowstone Valley Food Hub (YVFH) is a cooperative of farmers and ranchers that came together three years ago to increase the community's access to local food. It started as an online ordering platform and quickly grew into an enduring business. Today it provides the… [Read More]
CooperativesFood SupplyGrantsLocal Foods
Native American ladies sitting in chairs, talking and smiling with each other.

Increasing Abundance with Native Communities Cooperative Development Training

Cooperatives are designed to meet the common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations of a group. Making sure the group’s values and cultural dynamics are honored is fundamental to successful cooperative development; this makes the co-op model attractive to many… [Read More]
CooperativesGrantsRural DevelopmentTribalUnderserved
Group of adults in business suits standing on the front steps of a building. They are the 1963 coop seminar graduates of uwcc, the first class ever.

UW Center for Cooperatives Celebrates 60 Years of Serving the Co-op Community

As National Cooperative Month 2022 ends, we would like to highlight a special anniversary in the co-op world. The University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives (UWCC), the oldest university-based cooperative center in the nation, is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year.… [Read More]
BusinessCooperativesEconomic DevelopmentEducationUnderserved

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