Cooperation Eugene stands in solidarity with our community members of color as the tragedy of the murder of another black man at the hands of white police officers once again dredges up the accumulated pain of hundreds of years of mistreatment and inequality. We need meaningful change and healing, and we need it now!
It has been a challenging time for organizations working to find a balance between keeping society functioning and keeping people healthy as the pandemic rages on. We truly appreciate the time and energy of everyone who has come together to keep this effort moving forward!
We must all be vigilant during times like this to ensure that important gains we have made as a society are not eroded by government and industry looking to exploit current circumstances, as well as keeping our eyes out for opportunities to make progress on creating a more just and compassionate economy for all.
We continue to host our informative Study Circles each month to help educate ourselves. We read about and discussed worker cooperatives at one recent meeting as well as working on gaining a deeper understanding of the importance of the commons in another. For our July meeting we will be doing a deep dive into the meaning of democracy.
After a couple Zoom gatherings with the LSSN time bank community we finally met up in person at a park last week on a beautifully sunny day. It was great to see people’s faces again in person, albeit from a safe distance! Inspired by the pandemic we have decided to switch to having picnics instead of potlucks for any in-person gatherings going forward.
And a surprise occurrence that came out of the need for most communication to move online is that we have started helping a few other groups who have related causes host their meetings online using Zoom. It is inspiring to see folks coming together to help each other out during this crisis.
Take care, stay healthy, and we hope to see you soon!