Join a Working Group
CoopGardens.org was designed and built by several volunteers with the intention of connecting people with the resources needed to plant gardens of all sizes, and to help the Cooperative Gardens Commission grow and thrive.
How We Organize
The Cooperative Gardens Commission (CGC) is a grassroots organizing collective. We are open, transparent, non-hierarchical, and committed to consensus-based decision-making. Most of our work happens in our every-other-week Organizing Call.
Register to join via our home page.
See a Working Group You Would Like to Start?
Climate Adaptations
We meet to share strategies for adapting to our changing climate and in preparation for climate-related disasters. We study resource material and find ways to communicate findings throughout the CGC network.
To join the group’s online listserv, please click here.
Seed Distribution
The Seed Distribution Working Group meets every other Thursday at 7:30pm ET/5:30pm PT via video conference. To join the group and participate in meetings, please click here.
Education
The Education Working Group is restarting! First order of business, sharing seed-saving education. This is the year to save seeds in each hub, and enough seeds for conflict zones! The abundance of Nature makes this possible. Please click here.
Anti-Oppression Study Group (AoSG)
This working group was formed at the request of the BIPOC working group in June of 2020. Over the course of a year+ we developed a Roadmap to Reparative Foodways, based on a study of “Reparations” programs and sought to apply our learning to Cooperative Gardens Commission work, so that we (white and conditionally-white) members could show up to the work in good and effective ways. To join the group’s online listserv, please click here.
Coop Gardens Organizing⭐️
Now set to function as the combination of Facilitation/Admin, Media/Communications, Tech, and Outreach. To join the group’s online listserv, please click here.
Policy
The Policy Working Group will begin meeting again following the school year 2022. In the meantime, let’s share resources here, books to study, and ways to become informed of what is coming up! To join the group please click here.
BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color)
The BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) Working Group is not meeting regularly. If you do not identify as a member of these communities, please respect the safe space this group has held. If you wish to get involved, join the group’s online listserv, please click here.
Fundraising
This function is essential to our continuation as an org. We devoted serious effort towards a number of projects to raise funds annually. We have applied for a NIFA Grant, in partnership with the Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance. We are also working on the 2023 Planner for publication. Proceeds of this will go to support our core function, seed distribution, our overhead, and supporting functions.* You can download the free 2022 Planner here.
To join the group’s online listserv, please click here.
*Proceeds from this effort may well be split between the cost of printing and our organizational needs listed above. If this effort is wildly successful there may be funds for stipends to help make the 100s of hours invested in the work this org undertakes sustainable.
If you are new to the Cooperative Gardens Commission
Please sign up for our Organizing Calls before joining a working group, so you can find the best fit for you! We are now meeting the 1st and 3rd Monday of each month to continue with our work of growing food sovereignty!
“It is not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobile one drives nor the amount of money one has in the bank, that counts. These mean nothing. It is simply service that measures success.”
— Dr. George Washington Carver
Carver was a leader in reviving Afro-Indigenous regenerative agricultural practices such as cover crop planting to prevent soil depletion. He worked at Tuskegee University in the early 1900s.
Working together to co-create food security
Your energy, talent and time is appreciated. If you’re not involved yet, we invite you to participate in any way you can. We are grateful for any support you can offer!
“They tried to bury us, but they didn't know we were seeds.”
— Dinos Christianopoulos