Green City Growers Cooperative plants first crop in new worker-owned urban greenhouse
Posted by:
John Duda
Cleveland's Plain Dealer reports on the latest business in the Evergreen Cooperatives network:
Starting next month, you could have some Cleveland winter lettuce with that sandwich.
That's when Green City Growers Cooperative, a worker-owned business, expects to harvest its first crops from one of the largest urban greenhouses in the country, a 3 1/4-acre hydroponic operation off East 55th Street in the city's Central neighborhood.
The strategy of the Evergreen Cooperatives—for-profit, cooperatively owned green businesses linked together by a nonprofit corporation—is to use the purchasing power of "anchor institutions" like hospitals and universities to create much needed jobs in communities like Cleveland. The Plain Dealer's article highlights how one Cleveland resident is finding new hope as part of the fledging cooperative:
Mack Squire, 53, will be part of the initial work force of 25 showing up Monday to plant the first crop. Unemployed since July, Squire said his employer, an industrial stamping plant, lost a contract to a company in China.
Read the article at The Plain Dealer * Photo gallery