Description
We are having our 1st Santa Barbara County Cooperative Festival, November 8th, 2014, in Lompoc, CA. We are collaborating with other coops, to create a fun and educational event, offering a welcoming environment, having music, dancers, bouncy house and food.
The mission of the Lompoc Co-op Development Project is to create social and economic change in Lompoc through the development of worker-owned cooperative businesses that create sustainable jobs and promote life-changing opportunities for unemployed and under-employed residents in Lompoc. Worker cooperatives are owned and democratically controlled by the workers. The worker cooperative is a well-established, proven business structure with examples across the United States, Canada and the world. LCDP will create a solid foundation for the development of its first worker owned cooperative with the guidance of the California Center for Cooperative Development, and funding by the Santa Barbara Foundation and the Fund for Santa Barbara. LCDP’s first worker owned cooperative, a green cleaning business, is called the GREEN BROM BRIGADE.
Background
A little over a year ago members of a local church in Lompoc began meeting to explore ways that they could help their economically depressed community. They learned about cooperatives and contacted the California Center for Cooperative Development. The CCCD sent them information and discussed options and a partnership began. The small group of church members grew to include community leaders and professionals of different faiths who were deeply rooted in the Lompoc community and shared the same values and vision for economic renewal. While the immediate goal is to start the first cooperative the fall of 2012, LCDP’s goal is to start a cooperative development incubator that will be used to create many independent cooperative businesses.
