By Tom & Carol Braford
Photo caption: Co-op members. Left to right, Dave, Vizmaya, D.G., Sitara, Abdul, Madeline
As we celebrate 250 years as a country, it looks like we finally may have a new, highly experienced “Global Villages Cooperative” partner that gives us a combined pathway to build our cohousing / urban ecovillages and now worker-owned co-op businesses and side by side cooperatively owned residential communities. Together they open up a whole raft of new funding opportunities, suddenly making it possible to move relatively quickly forward on many fronts to the finish line.
This includes establishing a Global Cooperative Village Wallet that puts a patronage reward back in your bank or preferably credit union account every time you shop, once we sign up all our vendors.
This provides you a convenient, painless way to come up with your unit reservation deposit and accumulate the funds needed for a downpayment on your unit in cohousing or co-op housing! Also, if you do not already have a job/career you love that would make a mortgage on your dream home in community affordable, we will be opening up workforce training programs in our 6Rs breakthrough technologies that will put you on a path to worker ownership in the new Climate Solutions Islands of Coherence Communities of Practice Global Villages Cooperative partnership that we are forming with a new projects pipeline to substantially bring down our carbon footprint in St Louis, while creating a pathway for the world to do the same by 2050, giving future generations a shot at a 500 year 4th of July celebration, as well.
Tom was first interviewed on Everything Co-op on his birthday, 12/3/2015, and we met our new partner, Safeer, when he was interviewed on the program last week on 6/11/2026. When we find Tom’s recording and get the link to Safeer’s, we will post them on our website.
Please let us know what you are interested in or what questions you have, so we can get back to you and let you know about upcoming events. Contact us at braford@sbcglobal.net or at www.ArizmendiEcovillage.com.