Last Thursday, Urban Greens joined 19 other Rhode Island Co-ops and supporting organizations for the launch of the Rhode Island Worker Cooperative Alliance (RIWCA).

Board member Derek Bowman spoke on behalf of Urban Greens:

Urban Greens is excited to support RIWCA based on our core co-op principles and our commitment to strengthening our local community and economy. Since 2019, Urban Greens has operated a consumer co-op grocery store down the block at 93 Cranston Street to provide access to locally sourced, culturally inclusive nutritious food. Also, if you don’t live in this neighborhood, we have a web cart and do deliveries. Supporting RIWCA expresses and strengthens our shared commitment to social and economic justice, local ownership, and sustainable community development here in Rhode Island.

By participating with RIWCA, Urban Greens hopes to promote the cooperative ownership model further and help allow more of our neighbors to own their labor, share in profits, and have a real say in the businesses that operate in our community. RIWCA offers a collective voice advocating for public policies that support cooperative associations, fair wages, and local economic development. Urban Greens is eager to lend its voice to these efforts while benefiting from the collective power of the growing cooperative community here in Rhode Island. We’re excited for this partnership to help build a more vibrant, resilient, collaborative economy that will benefit workers and consumers in our community. As many others have said, as co-ops and neighbors, we’re all stronger together.

Read the full coverage by Steve Ahlquist here.