Food Co-op of the Month (Belfast, Maine)
Belfast Food Co-op prepares to expand
Stories
Coastal Food Shed & Mass Food Trust Program, Fill a Gap (New Bedford, MA)
Coastal Food Shed new facility ribbon cutting
LEAF Board Chair Inducted into the Co-op Hall of Fame (Washington, DC)
In 1985, Chris Clamp, a recent college graduate and Quaker Volunteer, first encountered LEAF as it was getting started. LEAF ignited her imagination with its vision of a community-funded cooperative non-profit—an alternative way to engage with society. Introduced to the…
Vicente’s Supermarket: A Community Treasure (Brockton, MA)
Founded in 1994 by Manuel Vicente, Vicente’s Supermarket has grown into a vital part of Brockton, MA and Pawtucket, RI communities, with a fourth store planned for New Bedford in late 2024. This thriving, Cape Verdean immigrant-led business is run…
LEAF’s Labor Day Reflections
Working Toward a Community-Based Economy. In 1977, as businesses fled Boston in search of lower wages, a visionary group saw an alternative: worker cooperatives. Novel to the US, cooperatives needed more awareness and funding. LEAF was founded to bridge this…
Holmestead Harvest: LEAF Supports Community-Minded Grocer (Whitman, MA)
Lizz Wilson founded Holmestead Harvest, a small independent grocer in Whitman, MA committed to bringing healthy, locally sourced produce to everyone – regardless of their financial circumstances.
One-third of Holmestead’s customers use the Massachusetts HIP (Healthy Incentives Program), which offers…
SymbiOp, Landscaping Worker-Cooperative (Portland, OR)
SymbiOp is a worker-owned landscaping cooperative in Portland, OR. This employee-owned coop has grown from 2 to 25 employees since 2020. The cooperative has residential and commercial landscaping services plus a garden shop.
What distinguishes SymbiOp is their approach to…
Friends of Gardens (Revere, MA)
From a family farm in El Salvador to the gardens of Boston, the Friends of Gardens journey is one of resilience, growth, and nurturing the land and dreams. Eulalio Guevara’s connection to the soil was forged tending a corn, beans,…
Juneteenth 2024
Juneteenth marks our country’s second independence day – when 159 years ago Union troops arrived to announce that 250,000 enslaved black people were finally free despite an executive order that had come 900 days earlier. This week, we reflect on…
Welcome Back, Nathan! LEAF’s Managing Director, Capital Markets & Institutional Partnerships
A conversation with LEAF’s newest team member, Nathan Hixson.
Q: What was your original role at LEAF?
NH: When I first joined LEAF in 2014, we were smaller and less specialized. I underwrote loans and spoke with investors, wrote grants,…
Chocolate Therapy (Wayland, MA)
Chocolate Therapy, family business
Bloomington Cooperative Living Housing (Bloomington, IN)
Housing Coop in Bloomington