Emily is a co-founder and worker-owner at Mera Kitchen Collective in Baltimore, Maryland. Established in 2018 as a way for new friends and neighbors to come together to share story-worthy food from around the world, Mera Kitchen has grown from small pop-ups and farmers market stalls to their first brick-and-mortar restaurant. Before moving to Baltimore, Emily spent 7 years with Doctors Without Borders, engaged in field operations throughout Central and East Africa and Southern Asia. She received her Masters in Public Health from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and her Masters in Accounting from the University of Colorado. Emily intended for her stay in Baltimore to be a short one, but that quickly changed as the city became her favorite place to live.
Author: Nia Hunter
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Kate
Kate is a co-founder and worker-owner of Red Emma’s, a cooperatively-owned restaurant and bookstore in Baltimore that helped to catalyze a city-wide ecosystem of worker-owned businesses over the last decade. In 2015, she helped to found the Seed Commons cooperative and its Baltimore peer, the Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy, and in 2018, became co-director of the Seed Commons network, with Brendan Martin. She currently serves as BRED’s Senior Fellow and a member of the staff collective. She received her PhD from The Johns Hopkins University, her MPhil and MA from the Universiteit van Amsterdam, and her BA from the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Bolton Hill with her partner, her son, a border collie, and three bad cats.
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Cooperative Real Estate Series
Are you interested in learning how you can pursue real estate but want to know what your options are to stay grounded in the community? We are hosting this free 3-part series to help cooperatives and cooperative centered communities learn more about what it takes to form, maintain, and and build different types of real estate models such as: -Community Land Trusts -Real Estate Cooperatives -Community Investment Vehicle*** This is a 3-part series so feel free to attend one or more session ***
Join us May 23, June 6, and July 11 from 5-7 pm. Register HERE
May 23rd: 5-7 pm
Red Clover Collective – Housing Collective
Red Clover Collective is a small intentional community and cooperative, with horizontal democratic governance. For 20 years they have been dedicated to building relationships and lifestyles centered around sustainable living, social justice, and centered values in artistic creation. Christina and Nicholas, members and residents of the community will be presenting this session to dive deeper into the history of Red Clover and how this structure has been a resource for their community.South Baltimore Community Land Trust (SBCLT) – Community Land Trust
Founded in 2019, SBCLT is a community-led organization that believes in dignified housing. Their focus is on environmental justice and housing in the process of developing homes to be owned in the Cherry Hill and Curtis Bay areas. They develop quality homes that stay affordable and offer support to homeowner applicants to prevent involuntary displacement within communities that face risk. Makayla, who is involved with the Housing Stewardship will be sharing the in and outs of what this organization does, and offer other resources to connect people to education on Land Trusts within their communities.June 6th: 5-7 pm
Network for Developing Conscious Communities (NDCC)
A spiritually based leadership and community development network organization. Their focus is in creating strategic-planning efforts to lead a diverse perspective in strengthening the Black governed community development ecosystem. Ron Hantz will be leading this conversation and it will focus on low-income cooperative housing strategies.July 11th: 5-7 pm
Invest York Road (IYR)
A local project to create community-owned commercial real estate for the purpose of revitalizing the York Road corridor and building community wealth. Join Stephanie Geller and learn about how this Community Investment Vehicle helped the surrounding neighborhoods of York Road as they developed and maintained this project -
Jim
Jim has worked in small businesses and micro-enterprises for over forty years, and has spent over twenty of those years working with and for worker co-ops and other types of co-ops. From 1999 thru 2009 he served at a DC-area worker co-op as a software engineer, worker-owner, and co-facilitator of its conversion from a conventional enterprise. He’s been a full-time free-lance co-op developer since 2009, actively providing technical assistance to worker co-ops, start-ups, and conventional businesses exploring conversion to worker-ownership. Jim is also a co-founder of the Democracy at Work Network, the technical assistance service of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives from 2011 thru 2018, and supported DAWN as a Peer Advisor and Governor.
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Nia
Originally from Colorado, Nia (they/them) has lived in Baltimore since 2005. BRED has been a part of their life since 2017 and they are also a worker-owner of Red Emma’s. Red Emma’s is a cooperatively-owned bookstore, coffee house, and restaurant located in Baltimore Maryland. Through both types of work they hope to provide spaces where statistically marginalized groups of people can feel safe, be seen, and grow through the resources provided by both businesses. Nia is also a muralist and a custom art maker, centering her art around wild and domesticated animals, queerness, and nature. They are a graduate of University of Maryland Baltimore County and currently live in Seton Hill with their daughter and their rescue animals.
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Anna
Anna is a Baltimore native with a deep love for the city and dreams for its future as a model of cooperative organization for others. She recently spent time engaged in movement work in Los Angeles, fighting for workers with the labor union Unite Here and toward deconstructing the carceral state through various prison abolition groups. She earned a master’s degree in urban planning and a bachelor’s degree in religious studies, and she recently completed training to become a death doula. When she needs to take a break and reset, she can be found with her massive beast of a cow (dog) Rhea, gently tending her indoor and outdoor gardens, drawing and painting, or escaping on various adventures in the great outdoors.
Project Officer
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How To Give Public Testimony
Have you ever wanted to propose a bill for something that you are passionate about, but don’t know how to talk about it in front of officials? Public Justice Center has you covered! BRED has partnered with PJC to bring you an event called Giving Public Testimony. The event will show attendees how to give effective public testimony to elected officials by using a bill that BRED introduced in Annapolis earlier this month as an example. The event will take place in the Baltimore Free School located in Red Emma’s. No registration is required.
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Christa
Christa Daring (they/them) has been with BRED since 2020. Having grown up in Baltimore City they are deeply dedicated to providing equitable and just solutions to local businesses and changemakers. Christa is deeply passionate about popular and participatory organizing models, believing that community knowledge and wisdom is key to building a new world in the shell of the old. They served as the interim Executive Director of SWOP-USA from 2018-2020. They worked at Red Emma’s Bookstore and Coffeehouse from 2011-2017 and Impact Hub Baltimore from 2017-2018. When not pouring over spreadsheets and governance models – Christa can be found snuggled up with a stack of speculative fiction; snuggling various cats or chickens; trying to create the perfect elderberry syrup; or just digging in the garden.
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Taji
Taji moved to his father’s hometown of Baltimore in 2016. He has worked in digital marketing, private wealth management, microfinance and small business technical assistance. Today, at Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy (BRED), Taji works with seasoned business owners who are selling ownership of their businesses to their employees, forming employee-owned businesses. He also works with startup businesses that plan to develop as employee-owned cooperatives.
Recognizing the relationship between the distribution of power in the private sector and that of the public sector, Taji is motivated by the solidarity economy movement to realize economic democracy and deeper, political democracy. To that end, he spent over five years volunteering on the board of an effort to start a community-owned food cooperative in Baltimore’s Cherry Hill neighborhood. Taji likes to bike, jog, swim and play basketball. He has a bachelor’s degree in International Relations with a specialization in international political economy from Stanford University.
Business Relationship Steward
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Reflections From BRED’s 2023 Apprenticeship And Academy Programs
On Friday, December 15th, participants in our apprenticeship and academy programs met in the Baltimore Free School to reflect on how it went and what the next round could look like. These two programs were headlined by BRED members Trish and Jim, and have been taking place in person and virtually since July. Trish and Jim facilitated the final meeting for the cohorts full of reflection, feedback, and future planning.
The group invited other BRED members to attend the meeting, and we thought we’d share some takeaways. Overall, these programs had a positive impact, and everyone seemed to enjoy learning, sharing, visiting co-ops in New York, and expanding their co-op knowledge. Other things the cohorts loved were:
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The stipend provided to the participants was much needed and appreciated by everyone.
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The flexibility of having online and in-person meetings.
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seeing so many different size co-ops
Several people agreed that they wished the programs lasted longer.
Moving forward there is a plan to explore things like a final project, communication between participants about their co-op events, co-op visits, a weekly email and so much more. Congratulations to the 2023 Apprenticeship and Academy cohorts.
2023 BRED Apprenticeship and Academy -