Author

Stephanie Van Hook wrote this article for YES! Magazine. Stephanie is the executive director of the Metta Center for Nonviolence, author of Gandhi Searches for Truth: A Practical Biography for Children, and host of Nonviolence Radio.  Find all this at www.mettacenter.org. 

Reed Ingalls is an intern at the Northwest Cooperative Development Center and a student at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, where he studies Cooperative Business Development and Restoration Ecology. You can read more of his writing at outgrowingcapitalism.wordpress.com

Future Focus Media Cooperative produces high quality video and photography while training youth in television and film production with the goals of building youth's job skills.

Baba Asar Amen-Ra, is a long time community and labor activist engaged in the eternal fight for more just and equitable world.

Vernon Oakes is President of Oakes Management Inc. As President, he has renovated and managed his own properties, and those owned by other entities since 1985. Mr. Oakes is the immediate Past President of the National Association of Housing Cooperatives, and serves on several boards to advance the interests of cooperatives. He is also a former coordinator of the MBA program at Howard University, and an MBA graduate of Stanford University, who has used his business acumen to benefit the community by providing quality housing for all populations. Vernon is a consummate advocate for cooperatives.