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The Cooperative Community Fund: A Small Grant Opportunity for Local Non-Profits
Now in it’s fifth year, the Cooperative Community Fund is a
sustainable fund for community donations and is part of a national
campaign called, ‘Give where you live.’ Sponsored by the Twin Pines
Cooperative Foundation, the fund serves as a means for co-op members and
shoppers to make donations to an endowment that donates to local
non-profit organizations.
Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation directly invests the money raised
by individual co-ops across the country in socially responsible funds
such as credit unions, locally owned community banks that support
cooperatives, the Northcountry Cooperative Development Fund, and the
National Cooperative Bank.
This year the fund generated $1500 in interest for Weaver Street
Market to disperse to local groups while leaving the principle to grow
next year’s community seed!
Work with a nonprofit? Apply today!
Local groups working on issues relating to: 1) sustainable
agriculture and organic food, 2) hunger and malnutrition, 3)
environmental protection, or 4) cooperatives are eligible to apply for a
grant from Weaver Street Market’s Cooperative Community Fund. Eligible
organizations must be certified non-profit and be working in Orange,
Chatham, or Alamance Counties, NC. Recipients will be chosen by a
volunteer committee of worker- and consumer-owners of Weaver Street
Market, and will be featured in Weaver Street Market’s Annual Report in
early October.
The deadline for applications is August 18, 2010 at 10:00 pm.
Download an application here.
Past Recipients
Our 2009 winners included...
Chapel Hill Cooperative Preschool
The Chapel Hill Cooperative Preschool provides a welcoming learning environment for students from Chapel Hill and Carrboro, as well as from the surrounding communities in Orange and Chatham counties. CHCP has been a leader in inclusiveness, serving students of a variety of races, nationalities, and learning abilities; when it opened, it was the first integrated preschool in North Carolina.
With the funds received from the Cooperative Community Fund, CHCP intends to develop a Healthy Children's School Garden. Through this garden, the school hopes to allow children to learn about the tenets of sustainable agriculture, cooking their own food, sharing the food among themselves, and distributing food to the greater community in need. The garden will employ the highest standards of irrigation, recycling, and sustainable farming methods.
Sewage Sludge Action Network
The Sewage Sludge Action Network is a local organization which is working toward public education and changing local and state policies regarding the land application of sewage sludge as a substitute for fertilizer. The group works to publicize information about the potential health risks from the bacteria, viruses, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, and other toxic contaminants which sewage sludge may contain.
With this grant, the Sewage Sludge Action Network plans to create a informational campaign to publicize their issues to farmers and the general public through a variety of publications and a direct mail campaign.
Student Action with Farmworkers
Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF) is a nonprofit whose mission is to bring students and farmworkers together to learn about each other's lives, share resources and skills, improve conditions for farmworkers and build diverse coalitions working for social change. SAF organizes students and consumers to work cooperatively with farmworkers through grassroots organizing, youth leadership, worker empowerment, and policy advocacy.
SAF hopes to use these funds to support their "From the Ground Up" program, which attempts to build community and engage local supporters in fair food efforts. In the coming year, they hope to improve farm labor regulation and enforcement, help provide educational access to undocumented students, and raise awareness by coordinating local events in support of National Farmworker Awareness Week.
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