In addition to our in-prison programming, Earth Equity facilitates a co-op incubator in Humboldt County CA. Each week formerly incarcerated visionaries gather to design California's first reentry support and regenerative aquacultue cooperative. The purpose of our emerging co-op is to reduce recidivism, revitalize kelp ecosystems, and create community wellbeing. By collaborating with seaweed, urchins, and one another, we will nourish and strengthen our community, empower system-impacted people, build meaningful relationships, and support self determination through economic justice.
Our co-op progrm creates well-paid jobs, job training, and pathways to business ownership for formerly incarcerated people. By supporting economic growth & financial stability for people coming home from prison, we support autonomy to break cycles of poverty which cause recidivism. By providing jobs which are fulfilling and prioritize wellbeing, we create a sense of purpose and belonging that can help our team and others permanently stay out of prison.
We have chosen a cooperative business model because co-op principles and values directly remedy the isolation, alienation, extractivism, and dehumanization which power prisons and recidivism. The co-op model helps system-impacted people build independence, connection, and trust. When people in reentry can rely on themselves & others, find acceptance & support, and build on our knowledge & interests, we are more likely to find a home beyond prison than return to it.
The cooperative model contributes to community wellbeing as it prioritizes people over profit. Instead of ending up in the hands of a few stockholders, any profits or surplus made within a cooperative are reinvested directly into the community and co-op members. The cooperative model hinges on accessibility, equity, education and concern for the community. It is an important step in a Just Transition from extractive to regenerative economies which honor people and the planet.
Our co-op development program aims to help system-impacted people to get and stay healthy through nutrition education and accessible healing foods (like seaweed). When we can collaborate to prevent & manage illnesses caused by prisons and colonization, we become able to build necessary energy for successful, sustainable reentry and long-term healing.
