Emma, Carlos, and Dalaeja

Below are three interviews with attendees of the 2024 US Worker Co-op Conference, held in Chicago earlier this year. Watch previous interviews here. We will be sharing more interviews with attendees over the coming weeks.

Chris interviews worker-owner Emma Yorra of Wholehearted Bookkeeping worker co-op and Oasis Solidarity Collective during the September 2024 USFWC Worker Co-op Conference in Chicago, Illinois.

CONNECT WITH WHOLEHEARTED BOOKKEEPING AND OASIS SOLIDARITY COLLECTIVE AT
-https://wholeheartedbookkeeping.com/
-oasissolidarity [at] gmail [dot] com

Chris interviews worker-owner Carlos of Sunset Scholars worker co-op at the September 2024 USFWC Worker Co-op Conference in Chicago, Illinois.

CONNECT WITH SUNSET SCHOLARS AND NYCNoWC AT
-https://nycworker.coop/co-op-directory/sunset-scholars/
-https://nycworker.coop/

Transcript

Chris: What's your worker co-op?

Carlos: My worker cooperative is Sunset Scholars, LLC. We're a tutoring cooperative based in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Chris: Awesome, and alright, what's your role in the co-up?

Carlos: So at the moment, I'm basically one of the remaining co-founders of the cooperative. So right now I'm essentially the coop by itself. It's an existing cooperative, it just stopped functioning. And now it's just basically in the process of relaunching or just redoing the business model and picking it back up.

Chris: What are you seeking to get out of this conference?

Carlos: I think the main thing that I came here for is just to educate myself on ways of funding or any sort of alternative business models that are being introduced or what other people are doing in different states. Like I'm not the only one, I'm probably not the only one that has a co-op model that was running, maybe had like a little bump, failed, took a break, something along those lines. I'm pretty sure it's not the one in New York, I'm sure it not the the only in the US. So what I came here for is just to kind of network and see what else is out there, or what are the possibilities that I'm looking at right now.

Chris: Awesome. And how did you get here?

Carlos: I got here with NYCNOWC, so we took like a 12 hour bus ride from New York to Chicago.

Chris: Nice, nice. Is this your first Worker Co-op conference?

Carlos: No, I've been to another one that was in New York and NYC back in like, I want to say like 2018 or something, it was before the pandemic.

Chris: Yeah, y'all existed before. What helped y'all the most at that time?

Carlos: I think what kept the cooperative model working was the fact that we had a very rooted to the neighborhood approach. We kept our services at a fairly low cost for the community. And we also worked with other cooperatives that were also incubated in the community as well. So it wasn't just us. There was other co-ops. There was like a, well, they still exist. There's like a dog walking cooperative around the same area. There's an elder care co-op around the same area. My mom is actually part of one of the other co-ops that's around there that specifies in like childcare. So cooperation among cooperatives is one of main things, like the principles of cooperatives that I think benefited us a lot because it wasn't just working with like what we had in the community but also working with everybody else that was in that ecosystem.

Chris: And what was something unexpected that helped y'all at that time?

Carlos: I wasn't expecting for people to like put so much support into it, you know, like I I was under the idea that we were just gonna like you know do like low-key tutoring services or like just like network around like with other cooperatives. Community churches or like churches around the area like around the neighborhood also started being like very supportive. They started reaching out to us like hey there's a mother looking for like tutoring help for their kid because they're struggling in school like can you help them and they were kind enough to also like let us borrow their space to provide like those services to them so that was I think that's probably kind of like unexpected because I wasn't I wasn't really like I wasn't expecting for the churches to kind of be on board with all of this and just kind of bring all of that together.

Chris: Awesome. So, where did y'all go to locally for assistance or where are you going now?

Carlos: I'm sticking with the New York City Network of Worker Co-ops, so NYCNOWC. That's been like, that's been one of our biggest support systems from the beginning. I've known them for a while, we've networked with them for awhile, and I don't think it's just for me. I think a lot of the co-op in New York city feel the same way. They're able to, you know, give out or just connect us to like different resources or like at least try to point us the right way. Obviously, there's little things here and there that still need some work. Whether it's like connecting more folks into the space or just like more programming, but in general I think they've been like a huge help.

Chris: So what's been the most, the best or most useful part of the conference so far?

Carlos: I think the last session that I attended just now was very useful in terms of knowing what to do next, because right now what I was stuck on is just funding, grants, what can I apply for, what I can not apply for. The interest of the cooperative and being part of it is still in the neighborhood and it's still in community, not just in Sunset Park, but also across like other boroughs, and other people that have reached out to me telling me that they would be interested in doing something like that. So definitely attending that session kind of let me know that there's an actual place where you can look for these things and there's resources for you to start doing your own research, looking into it, seeing if you apply or not. And also with, I can't remember their name, I think they're called Shared Capital Co-operative? I really like the talk they were giving, and they are branching out with a lot of resources as well. So I think connecting with them would probably be phenomenal.

Chris: Yeah, and I don't know if this is considered professional journalism, but if you join Shared Capital, you become a member and you can have an influence on their practices, I think. And I think that people need to be swapping notes about, hey, should a co-op lender be pretty intentional about who it's lending money to? Yeah. Yeah

Carlos: But I think it's a step up from that developer-cooperative relationship, because I'll speak from experience. My cooperative didn't have a good relationship with our developer. None of the other cooperatives that came before us that were developed in the same place had a good working relationship with that developer as well. And it was mainly because of the main fact of transparency. Be clear with us. Let us know what exactly it is that... Like what's going on behind the scenes, where's the money coming from, how can we apply for it, why do we apply it, you know? Little things like that, just being aware of everything that's happening and keeping us in the loop is a better way of doing things rather than just doing one thing and then doing something else behind somebody else's back.

Chris: Is there anything that's gone on in the co-op that you're proud of or excited by?

Carlos: I'm proud of just making the co-op. I'm just proud of being a business owner. Once the business started operating, I was a little bit in disbelief, and this happened when I was 17, 18 years old, where the business was made and I was like, damn, I'm not just working here, I also own part of the business. That's empowering, because you kind of feel like, shit, if I can do this, I could do anything else. You know? You feel like included, you feel like you're a part of something, you feel you could do more past that, so.

Chris: Shameless plugging. Anything you want to say in support of your effort.

Carlos: Just be on the lookout, Sunset Scholars is going to become a thing again, it's going to be active again. Hopefully we start doing more around the neighborhood. I'm part of the Advocacy Council for NYCNOWC, so definitely follow NYCNOWC on all their socials. Look at their website, look at all the resources they got. Connect from like out of state because we definitely like networking with other people, and seeing where everybody's at. So that's definitely a great thing that I would encourage people to do.

Chris: Awesome, that's New York City Network of Worker Cooperatives.

Carlos: NYCNOWC.

Chris: Awesome, thanks so much.

Chris interviews worker-owner Dalaeja Foreman of Breadfruit worker co-op at the September 2024 USFWC Worker Co-op Conference in Chicago, Illinois. CONNECT WITH BREADFRUIT AT
-https://www.instagram.com/breadfruitbreadfruit/

Gratitude
Thank you to Esther West for proposing these three questions for these interviews:
-What has helped you the most?
-What’s something unexpected that’s helped you?
-What’s something you wish your co-op had to support your efforts?