(Part 1 of a 2 part series.)
The impact of cooperatives on America will be a focus of the Co-op Festival on the National Mall on October 6 and 7 in celebration of Co-op Month. Alliance members – the Greenbelt Federal Credit Union, the Greenbelt News Review, the Greenbelt Nursery School, the Greenbelt Consumer Cooperative, Greenbelt Homes Incorporated (GHI), the New Deal Café and Greenbelt Makerspace Cooperative – will be participating in the Co-op Festival and helping tell the story of how cooperatives support their communities.
In 94 countries around the world, 750,000 cooperatives serve over one billion people. In the United States, one in three Americans is a member of a cooperative. American cooperatives annually generate $514 billion in revenue and more than $25 billion in wages, according to a study conducted by the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives.
Greenbelt’s many cooperatives are part of this strong tradition and have committed to serving Greenbelt while upholding co-op principles and values. The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) Statement on the cooperative identity notes, “Cooperatives are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. In the tradition of their founders, cooperative members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others. The cooperative principles are guidelines by which cooperatives put their values into practice.”
For more on this story, click here to see the September 27 edition of the News Review.