beyond business as usual 2024
CO-OPS & THE NEXT ECONOMY
Join folks from across Connecticut’s local and regional co-op movement to connect, learn, and strategize around building businesses and an economy that prioritizes people and the planet over endless profit.
Reserve your seat today, in person or online!
Registration is free with a suggested donation of $50 through our Sustainable CT campaign described below. No one will be turned away due to lack of funds.
Convening for Cooperation
Beyond Business as Usual 2024 seeks to convene co-op members, developers, funders, investors, technical assistance providers, worker self-directed non-profits, grassroots collectives, and the co-op curious to connect, learn, and strategize around building businesses and an economy that prioritizes people and the planet over profit.
The conference is being held in person at the 224 EcoSpace at 224 Farmington Ave, Hartford, Connecticut and streamed online.
Attendance is free with a suggested donation. Childcare, live Spanish-English interpretation, light refreshments, and lunch will be provided.
The 2024 conference is co-hosted by reSET and Cooperate Connecticut and funded in part through a matching grant from Sustainable CT with additional support from the Cooperative Fund of the Northeast, the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, and 224 Ecospace.
Pictured (from left to right): varun khattar sharma, Javier Villatoro, Gabbie Barnes, Constanza Segovia, and Sarah White at Cooperate Connecticut’s launch on October 21, 2023 at Trinity College in Hartford
Reserve your seat today, in person or online!
Registration is free with a suggested donation of $50 through our Sustainable CT campaign described below. No one will be turned away due to lack of funds.
Conference Agenda
10:00-5:00— Registration, Help Desk, Coffee, Tea, Refreshments, Book & Resource Fair, Childcare, and Artmaking
10:30-11:00 — Opening and Grounding with Gabbie Barnes and varun khattar sharma
11:00-11:50 — Panel: Building Our Regional Co-Op Ecosystem with Alex Kolokotronis, Ana Martina, Emily Kawano, Johan Matthews, and Sarah Assefa . English with Spanish interpretation. Recorded and livestreamed.
12:00-1:00 — Lunch with La Tortilleria Semilla Co-Op
1:00-1:50 — Panel: Developing Co-Ops Beyond Borders & Papers with David Molina-Hernandez, Denisse Cruz, Javier Villatoro and Pavel Uranga. Spanish with English interpretation. Recorded and livestreamed.
1:00-1:50 — Workshops
Starting or Converting to a Cooperative Business with Carolyn Edsell-Vetter from the Cooperative Fund of the Northeast and Emily Kawano from Wellspring Cooperative
Practicing Cooperation in Everyday Life with Kristianna Smith, author of Harvesting Chaos: Seed Packets for Liberated Practice
Funding Co-Ops and the Movement of the Next Economy with Zac Chapman from the New Economy Coalition
2:00-2:50 — Meet Ups
Farmer Co-Ops hosted by Liberated Land Co-Op
Food Co-Ops hosted by Fiddleheads Food Co-Op
Housing Co-Ops hosted by Willow Permanent Real Estate Cooperative and the Naugatuck Valley Housing Development Corporation
Worker Co-Ops hosted by La Tortilleria Semilla and Bridgevolt Cooperative. Spanish and English
Choose Your Own.
Co-Op Peer Support Clinic. Virtual, Spanish and English
3:30-4:00— Reconvening & Action Planning with Gabbie Barnes and varun khattar sharma. English with Spanish interpretation. Recorded and live streamed.
4:00- 5:00 — Fireside Chat: Cooperative Economics & Black Futures with Ashleigh Eubanks and Steph Wiley, Central Brooklyn Food Democracy Project. English with Spanish interpretation. Recorded and live streamed.
Ashleigh Eubanks
Ashleigh (she/they) is a queer Black femme with a tender heart and big smile. She has called Brooklyn home for over a decade now, though she is originally from the north end of Hartford. She holds a BA in Gender Studies from Mt. Holyoke College. Ashleigh is the Associate Director of the Our Food program at RiseBoro Community Partnership where she co-leads a cooperative business development program that incubates Black, worker-owned food businesses as a part of a larger food sovereignty initiative, known as The Central Brooklyn Food Democracy Project. Her work includes political education, cooperative business development, community organizing and food systems change work.
Conference Presenters
Carolyn Edsell-Vetter
Carolyn joined CFNE in March 2019. As the Cooperative Business Support Officer, she works with Spanish- and English-speaking applicants and borrowers to assess project feasibility and connect with culturally-appropriate technical assistance resources. Carolyn came to CFNE after 19 years with A Yard & A Half Landscaping near Boston, MA, where she led their conversion to a worker-owned co-op and served as co-CEO from 2014-2019. Carolyn serves on the board of the Cooperative Development Institute, and has been involved in co-ops since living in a cooperative house in college.
Steph Wiley
Steph is dedicated to ensuring that every New Yorker can access healthy food through his worker-owned food distribution cooperative, Brooklyn Packers. His focus is on creating neighborhood food hubs that connect BIPOC farms and aggregators with communities in need. These hubs improve health and economic outcomes while promoting better nutrition. By envisioning worker-owned hubs encompassing wholesale, retail, and agriculture businesses, he creates abundant job opportunities and ensures year-round access to fresh, local, affordable, and culturally relevant food for all New Yorkers. By addressing basic needs and fostering community connections, Steph believes these hubs can foster more resilient neighborhoods that thrive.
Gabbie Barnes
Gabbie (she/her) is a founding member and worker-owner of the People's Saturday School Cooperative, and a member of Mutual Aid Hartford, and former advisory board member of Cooperate Connecticut. She’s currently serving a three-year term for the City of Hartford’s Commission on Cultural Affairs and as board member for the Windsor Art Center. In 2022, Gabbie founded FREE HART Closet: a free art supply store that makes high quality art supplies & workshops available to everyone. In 2024, she was named one of the CT Office of the Arts CT Arts Heroes and is one of six organizers in Shareable’s SolidarityWorks Library of Things Fellowship.
Johan Matthews
As Ecosystem Strategy Manager at the Cooperative Fund of the Northeast, Johan facilitates the development of equitable co-op ecosystems in emerging communities across the northeast. He also provides culturally informed technical assistance to ensure that communities traditionally excluded from economic investment can engage in cooperative enterprise. Johan joins CFNE after over a decade of collaborating with local leaders and institutions to design and implement community-based economic engagement strategies.
varun khattar sharma
varun (they/elle) is a Punjabi Queer facilitator, teacher, guide, consultant, cultural worker, uncle, auntie, and survivor living in Hartford, Connecticut. They are passionate about working with people and groups navigating conflict, burnout, and abuse and building more powerful, democratic, and resilient movements. varun is the founder and a worker-owner of the People’s Saturday School and a facilitator with Beyond Diversity 101 and Co-Creating Effective & Inclusive Organizations. They previously worked as a high school teacher and a community organizer and were active as a young person in local grassroots movements for immigrant rights and racial and economic justice. In 2020, they co-founded the Connecticut UndocuFund, a grassroots collective that redistributed a quarter of a million dollars to immigrant households impacted by COVID-19.
Conference Sponsors
Conference Partners
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The New Economy Coalition is a membership-based network representing the solidarity economy movement in the United States. We exist to organize our members into a more powerful and united force, in order to accelerate the transition of our economic system from capitalism to a solidarity economy.
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Fiddleheads Food Cooperative is a full service grocery store specializing in local, organic and natural products. We’re owned by over 4,000 households throughout southeastern Connecticut working together to create a locally focused, sustainable and health-driven food system.
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Bridgevolt Cooperative is a non-profit worker self directed corporation based in Bridgeport, CT whose mission is to develop socially useful technologies and we are excited to pursue that goal by providing transportation options that are affordable, convenient, and environmentally sustainable.
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Liberated Land Cooperative is a Black & Brown Connecticut local farmer CSA cooperative whose mission is to provide fresh, locally grown produce while uplifting and centering black & brown voices in our community.
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The People's Place is a grassroots initiative that seeks to build power within individuals and communities through fiscal sponsorship, organizational and leadership development and business incubation.
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Possible Futures is a community bookspace, a cross between a community reading room and an independent bookstore in New Haven, CT.
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La Tortilleria Semilla is an immigrant-run worker cooperative making fresh tortillas from heirloom corn in order to create dignified, equitable and democratic jobs.
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Hartford Press Co-Op is a community printmaking and book arts studio whose mission is to make the democratic art forms of printmaking and book arts more accessible to our community by providing affordable workshops, classes, and sliding-scale co-op memberships.
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Mercado Popular is a community food hub focused on bringing fresh, healthy food to the downtown Hartford area, educating people about growing, purchasing, and cooking healthy food, and supporting farmers who are people of color. Mercado is built by the Hartford community and for the Hartford community.
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The Trinity College Center for Hartford Engagement and Research (CHER) works to strengthen and evaluate academic and co-curricular partnerships between Hartford’s diverse communities and students, staff, and faculty at Trinity College.
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The People’s Saturday School is an emerging worker-owned cooperative of facilitators based in Hartford, Connecticut. Guided by the principles and practices of care, accountability, and cooperation, we support individuals and organizations working towards collective liberation.
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Free Hart Closet is a free art supply store that makes high quality art supplies & workshops available to everyone.
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Mutual Aid Hartford (MAH) is a responsive community network. Our work furthers alignment in the social movement ecosystem through education, social care, and the stewardship of third space. Our work has transformed but, our mission remains; building community power through person to person care and connection.
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Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner is a community venture building studio based in Hartford.
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Get Involved!
Would you like to learn more or get involved in Cooperate Connecticut? Are you interested in volunteering or tabling on October 26?
Please reach out to reSET’s Co-Op Navigator Fellow varun khattar sharma at vksharma@resetco.org!