Letter from Directors



2023 was a year of reflection, innovation and growth as Wellspring continues to mature organizationally in our second decade.  Wellspring runs two core programs of cooperative development and community cooperative initiatives, both of which draw on our strengths forming community collaborations and creating organizations and businesses to solve community problems.  This year we developed new partnerships to open the Gran Cocina community kitchen in Holyoke, to establish a community land trust, to expand our food access work through health and community centers, and to grow our network of ten cooperative businesses.

 

Our ten-year anniversary celebration offered an opportunity to reflect on our accomplishments and recognize past and present leaders.  This event strengthened our collective identity through telling Wellspring’s story and created a new tradition of leadership awards.  Throughout the year we also reflected on the limitations of our board election process,  which lead to support by the Governance Committee and board for a new participatory election system and plans to clarify and update our organizational membership.

   

Wellspring’s priority of community engagement and participation is also evident in the multiple outreach events held this year as well as our emphasis on creating maker spaces that expand community access to productive resources.  Most noteworthy was the Building Worker Power conference organized by our Labor Co-op Committee, which drew over 450 participants.  After many years of exploring different models for maker spaces, Wellspring joined with Neighbor to Neighbor to make a significant investment in the creation of the Gran Cocina/Great Kitchen community kitchen as an incubator for new food businesses.  Wellspring is also exploring the possibility of a community production space, which was the focus of our annual General Assembly.


New financial resources are also funding growth at Wellspring.  These include a significant grant from the new Just Fund, expansion of the USDA funded prescription produce program, and a $140,000 one-time, year-end CITC donation through Baystate United Way.  These many accomplishments are a tribute to the dedicated co-op members, leaders and volunteers working together to realize Wellspring’s vision of a cooperative economy and community in Springfield and Western Massachusetts.


In Solidarity,

Ten Years of Building the Cooperative Economy

“Ten years, ten co-ops” was the theme of Wellspring’s anniversary celebration on October 15. Members, supporters, and friends gathered at the Carriage House in Forest Park to celebrate our accomplishments and community. The elegant setting and good food provided a perfect setting to reflect on our achievements and recognize the contributions of our leaders.


Wellspring chairs Ernesto Cruz and Tracye Whitfield opened the program by recognizing the invaluable contributions of our board and committee members.  Many of our significant achievements were highlighted during the Wellspring Story, recounted by co-directors Emily Kawano and Fred Rose.  The presentation and slide show provided a timeline from our formation in 2011 to our first cooperative (Wellspring Upholstery) founded in 2013 through to the present day, with opportunities for key participants to say a few words about their experiences and contributions.


Below are the members of our co-op network, which were each introduced during the event, as highlighted here:  



The anniversary launched a new award tradition at Wellspring – with three award categories for an individual exhibiting Cooperative Spirit, an exemplary Cooperative Business, and the contributions of a Cooperative Ally.    

The Wellspring Story is ongoing, building on the accomplishments of our founding decade.  Our network of cooperative businesses and community-led initiatives have been made possible by our dedicated partners, volunteers, staff and financial supporters.  The collage of participation and accomplishments highlighted during this anniversary event created a strong sense that this is OUR story, and this collective endeavor is forging something new and exciting for our region.  That story is still unfolding as we look ahead to our next decade of work together.


Building Worker Power Through Unions & Cooperatives

Building Worker Power Conference

Wellspring’s Labor/Co-op Committee initiated a joint effort with the UMass Labor Center to organize the Building Worker Power Conference. Hundreds of people came from across the region to participate in the conference, with over 30 workshops and two plenaries. On Friday evening, the keynote panelists Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson and Chris Smalls the president of Amazon Labor Union electrified a packed auditorium and created a buzz of excitement and inspiration that reverberated throughout the following days. Saturday’s plenary featured stories from a number of unionized co-ops including Worx Printing, PVD Flowers Co-op, and White Electric Coffee Co-op.

Labor Day Webinar on Co-op Transitions

Wellspring’s Labor/Co-op Committee organized a Labor Day webinar on “Transitioning Traditional Businesses to Worker Co-ops.” The panel featured two local case studies: Beth Spong spoke about Dean’s Beans Organic Coffee’s journey to worker ownership, and Tom Ewing from Ewing Controls shared their experience. Wellspring’s co-director Fred Rose wrapped up the webinar with a range of resources to support Co-op Transitions.

The Vision of a Community Land Trust with Community Production



2023 General Assembly: Spotlight on Local Resilience and Community Production

On December 1, Wellspring held our General Assembly at the Springfield Innovation Center. We are grateful to Make-It-Springfield for sharing their access to this beautiful venue. The event combined a grazing table, socializing, an overview of the past year, and Board elections.

These centers will use rapidly advancing digital fabrication technology to meet local needs with sustainable materials. A shared governance structure will ensure these centers benefit and remain accountable to the community. Many such centers are part of an international network of 1,750 Fab Labs, an open creative community of fabricators, with a slogan, “Design globally, produce locally.”


Wellspring envisions creating a Center for Community Production to be a part of multi-use Lower Valley Community Land Trust. Read more about our land trust work below.

Community Land Trust Work

from local to national

Lower Valley Community Land Trust

Wellspring Cooperative, WMass Neighbor to Neighbor and Equity Trust continued this year working to develop a Lower Valley Community Land Trust (CLT) with a focus on Springfield and Holyoke. The land trust would develop a local solidarity economy ecosystem including permanently affordable, green housing; regenerative agriculture/food system; space to support culture, community connection and education; and production through co-op businesses and DIT (do-it-together) forms of community production and mutual aid. A Center for Community Production with traditional and digital fabrication technology would support all of the above.


Regional, Statewide & National Collaboration

Collaboration on this work continued regionally, statewide, and nationally as well. The Lower Valley CLT is a member of the Housing & Land Justice Collaborative (working name) whose members include existing or in-formation CLTs in Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden counties. This group has been meeting for two years to explore ways to collaborate and support each other. In the fall of 2023, in partnership with Franklin County CLT, the Steering Committee was awarded a $40,000 grant from the MA Department of Public Health’s Root Cause Solutions Exchange to advance this collaborative housing equity work.


The Greater Boston CLT Network (GBCLT) has been taking the lead on local policy work for years, some of which have expanded to the state level. The Housing and Land Justice Collaborative works with the GBCLT Network on these advocacy efforts.


On the national level, Wellspring’s CLT work has engaged with and benefited from the support of the People’s Network for Land and Liberation (PNLL), an initiative of organizations in six regions of the US, including ours, that is building cooperative, regenerative and balanced local communities based on the solidarity economy.

Strengthening Community Food Sector


Food brings people together with the potential to drive community development.  In addition access to fresh, healthy food is a right.  Yet despite our rich agricultural region in Western Massachusetts many urban communities do not have access to this local bounty.  Wellspring is strengthening the food sector and increasing nutrition and health through multiple programs.

This commercial community kitchen offers a safe, legal, and worker-friendly environment where new and emerging food businesses, food trucks and caterers can produce their culinary creations. This shared kitchen operates 24/7 and offers members a place to store their tools and refrigerate their food; all at an affordable fee. Subsidies are available for limited-income users. The kitchen fills a gap in the emerging food economy in Holyoke and has received strong support from city and community leaders.

Go Fresh Mobile Market is a mobile farmers market serving food insecure Springfield residents. Go Fresh operates out of the Wellspring Harvest greenhouse and aggregates produce from area farms with a priority on sourcing from BIPOC farmers. Fresh fruits and vegetables are delivered weekly throughout the year to senior and low- income housing complexes, health and community centers and area libraries. SNAP recipients can use their state Healthy Incentive Program benefits to purchase produce only at farmers markets.  In 2023 the mobile market delivered over $62,000 of produce to 883 distinct customers at 20 sites across Springfield.

Springfield Prescription Produce Project is a three-year, USDA funded program designed to demonstrate the connection between nutrition and improved health. Wellspring is the grant lead for this collaboration with the three Baystate community health centers in Springfield, and the Center for Family Life at the University of Massachusetts.  Medical providers at the three health centers are identifying 150 patients with conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes and other conditions, and researchers are tracking the health benefits of improved nutrition over the 18 months of the program.

Building the Movement

Our 2nd annual statewide Solidarity Economy/Co-op Festival & Gathering were held in Pittsfield over the weekend of June 10-11.Saturday was Festival Day on the Pittsfield Commons. We had a great range of tablers including vendors and many organizations aligned with co-ops and the solidarity economy. We also had a free swap table, hands-on activities, music, cultural sharing and collective “We Make Us Safe” banner-making, which was the theme of the weekend. The two open space blocks of time, where anyone could offer a workshop, generated great offerings on worker co-op governance, creating safe and inclusive spaces, laughter yoga, Economics for Emancipation, and multicultural organizing. We wrapped up the day with an introductory workshop on the solidarity economy and a fun performance for kids and families. Some people took a walking tour of nearby solidarity economy and organizing initiatives and spaces.

On Sunday, a smaller group convened at the Berkshire Community College to engage in relationship building, visioning, and creating a shared understanding of the state of the solidarity economy movement in Massachusetts. Workshops focused on local Berkshire organizing, CLTs, Land & Housing, Idea Currency Game, Frontline Leadership, and Planning for Safer Movement Space.  We used a World Café process to collectively identify opportunities to strengthen our movement. Priorities included a continued focus on building frontline leadership, a commitment to, and support for, creating safe spaces, and ramping up good storytelling about solidarity economy work across the state.

We worked hard to make the entire weekend accessible and safe. Interpretation and childcare were available for free, and a team of volunteers were prepared to address and provide support for anyone who felt in any way unsafe. Happily the team was not called into action. Overall, the feedback from participants was that it was an energizing, hope filled, welcoming and fun event that gave us all a tremendous boost of inspiration to continue to build our movement for a more cooperative, just, democratic, equitable and sustainable world.

Together We are Stronger

In 2023, Wellspring Cooperative held eleven local educational and outreach events to boost community engagement with local residents and organizations. Additionally, Wellspring participated in national activities promoting the cooperative and solidarity economy movements.

We established new relationships with city government, the Chamber of Commerce, Mass Development, and E for All through our work around the Holyoke community kitchen. The Prescription Produce and community production networks strengthened ties with Baystate Health and the University of Massachusetts.


The March Building Worker Power conference further solidified connections with unions, UMass, and its 450 participants. The Wellspring Harvest greenhouse developed new relationships with technical assistance providers, including the Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA) and Franklin County CDC. Additionally, community land trust work expanded relationships with Neighbor to Neighbor, Equity Trust and a network of regional partners.


Our impact is strengthened in solidarity with these partners whose vision for just, healthy, and flourishing communities echoes that of Wellspring’s.


Financials 2023

Up in 2023

2023 was an up year! Donations were up, foundation and government grants were up, and most importantly investment in our programs was up. With giving up by 35% and grant funding up by 50%, 2023 has been a record breaking year with revenues hitting $812,810.  Our diversified funding base of generous individual supporters balanced by local, regional and government grants helped fund our general operating expenses and invest almost $400,000 into our co-op development and community cooperative initiatives programs. To top that off, a generous end of year gift from an anonymous benefactor allowed us to finish the year with an unusually high carryover balance enabling us to start 2024 with partial funding.  


Funding Through Community Investment Tax Credit Surpasses $1 Million

Wellspring is a member of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations (MACDC), a state-wide membership association of more than 100 community development corporations (CDCs) and non-profit organizations. CDCs develop and improve urban, rural, and suburban communities in sustainable ways that create and expand economic opportunities for low- and moderate-income people. Every year Wellspring applies for an allocation of tax credits from the state.

The tax credit program awards donors of $1,000 or more a 50% Massachusetts tax credit encouraging donors to double their donations knowing that they will get half back with this tax credit. Wellspring has been participating in this program since 2019, and in 2023 we raised $336,000 through CITC. In five years we have raised over $1.16 million!  Learn more.

In Appreciation!


To our board for your invaluable contribution of time, wisdom,

creativity &  work!

2023 BOARD MEMBERS


Julia Agron                         Chronic Trips Cooperative

Todd Bailey                        Baystate Health

Natalie Cotton-Nessler      Western New England University

Ernesto Cruz*                    Coalition for Worker Ownership and Power (COWOP)

Terry Gibson                      Neighbor to Neighbor

J Jasper                             Farm Bug Cooperative

Jeff Jones                          UFCW Local 1459

Ronald Molina-Brantley**  Berkshire Bank

Jorge Perez                       PATCH

Boone Shear                     University of Massachusetts

Tracye Whitfield*               Springfield City Council & Coalition for a Equitable Economy

*co-chair  **treasurer


NEW for 2024 BOARD


Lesenia Fields              Go Fresh Mobile Market

Ivelice Lefebvre            Energia

Charles Schweik          UMass Amherst School of Public Policy

Moyah Smith                M & T Bank

Clive Ndlovo                 Wellspring Harvest Cooperative


To our generous donors!

To our generous funders and folks who have donated their professional services!

Funders

Pro bono service providers

Wellspring Cooperative Corporation

121 Pinevale Street

PO Box 51116

Springfield, MA 01151


Copyright 2024