Launching a small business is never easy, but it’s even harder when the proprietors face systemic obstacles to business ownership. Through shared resources and community support, five Emma cooperatives are creating a model for equity and growth.

Launching a small business is never easy, but it’s even harder when the proprietors face systemic obstacles to business ownership. Through shared resources and community support, five Emma cooperatives are creating a model for equity and growth.
“This is giving us a way to organize at a regional scale around carbon farming and climate resilience,” says Co-operate WNC founder and permaculture educator Friedman. “Us doing little stuff in our backyards is not adding up to climate resilience — I wish it were, but it’s not.”
By Andrea Golden Dulce Lomita Mobile Home Cooperative began in June 2013 with the purchase of a six-unit mobile home park in the Emma neighborhood. Members of the cooperative, who had been renting mobile homes in and around the area, created the cooperative as an opportunity for our families for first-time homeownership. But we also […]
“We have to remember that the holidays can be a stressful time for some of our families who are living on tight margins,” says Lisa Barlow, Children First/CIS Student support specialist at Emma.
“Now, 20 years after the creation of the Family Resource Center at Emma, the need still exists in the Emma community, as unemployment and the number of students on the free and reduced lunch program are still extremely high.”
The children of the Emma Community have a new way of getting to school. A “walking school bus” puts the neighborhood’s new sidewalks to use and gives students a safer way to walk to school.