What is a COOP?
A Cooperative is an organization that brings together resources, talent and conviction in order to effectively address problems facing the community. It is founded on the idea that real change should and in fact must be a collaborative effort. Which means people coming together voluntarily and independently to meet their common socioeconomic challenges.
Louisiana's first Latino based cooperative is breaking new ground every month and leading the way in urban sustainable agriculture and community centered economic growth strategies. The cooperative attracts talented young men and women from diverse backgrounds by giving them the tools, the seeds and the land necessary to grow the nutritious food too seldom available in Central City New Orleans.
The results speak for themselves. New farmers are joining the cooperative all the time in order to learn how they too can benefit from cultivating nutritious and delicious food in a sustainable way. The knowledgeable teach, the eager learn, the concerned buy the food at a fair price and the movement grows.
What separates cooperatives like the LFCL from a for-profit organization is that our success is not measured in dollars and cents, but rather by the impact we have in our community. Our goals are simple: to put in place a comprehensive set of self-help programs that: 1) meet the food needs of low income Latino families; 2) increase the economic independence in providing for their own food needs; and 3) promote comprehensive responses to food, farm and nutrition issues for people of ALL colors.
Modeled by several renowned food system projects including the Hartford Food System (Connecticut), Growing Power (Wisconsin), and Nuestras Raices (Massachusetts), the LFCL is pursuing its mission by organizing an integrated community food system where food is a way to better the social and economic life of the community, to enrich the environment, and to improve human welfare.
The LFCL follows same legal incorporation schema as all nonprofits and is subject to all the corresponding benefits and limitations and is overseen by a board of directors. LFCL is based around the concepts of self-help, self-responsibility, and self-organization.
