Sharing Knowledge & Mutual Support
ReDelicious is rooted in community care and collective learning. Here are some of the other groups in our ecosystem, as well as our thoughts and dreams that inform us.
We were inspired by the ideas of these books and ideas, among many more:
- Infinite Play: playing in order to continue play, not just to win. A heartwarming and compassionate vision by James Carse of surviving and loving life together, no matter what happens.
- Joyful Militancy: being militant about “what we can do together” (an alternative definition of joy), not just being “right”. A beautiful treatise by carla bergman and Nick Montgomery.
- Radical Mycology: learning and acting like mushrooms and fungi
- Governing the Commons: Elinor Ostrom was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics… in 2009! In her book Governing the Commons, she showed that the Tragedy of the Commons is a myth and that her rival Garret Harding who came up with the term was full of shit. She showed how we can successfully and collectively self-manage a common space or resource WITHOUT selling it to the highest bidder (privatization) OR top-down regulation. She laid out the design principles that make commons successful.
- Moving at the Speed of Trust: a mantra used by adrienne maree brown and others repeats this mantra in her work, a reminder to be kind with ourselves and know that we will never be perfect, but attempt to hold ourselves accountable and share responsibility so we don’t burn out
- The Solution Of All Our Problems: instead of seeing problems as “puzzles” to be “solved”, which they rarely maybe instead there’s a “solution OF all our problems” that are all mixed together like a stew or a fermentation culture. Instead of always failing to isolate and “solve” problems one by one, we can see them within the larger system and think creatively to dissolve them back into a more balanced solution. This was the juiciest tidbit from an otherwise kind of drawn-out and too technical book called Metaphors We Live By.
We were also inspired by Freedom Fights and Freedom Farmers, as well as cooperative, solidarity, and liberating economic visionaries, like Fannie Lou Hamer, Ida B. Wells, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Elinor Ostrom, Marion Barry, WEB DuBois, and Cornbread Givens.
Local Resources for Food Rescue & Redistribution
There's so much need for food, and so much food waste. We only collect a little here and there. We are one of many food giveaways that happen regularly at churches, nonprofits, and mutual aid groups across the city. We have a list we made awhile ago, but there are many more: like this one from the 51st. If anyone has them all consolidated into one resource, please let us know: redeliciouscoop@gmail.com.
We also want to shout out Food Rescue, the app which runs food recovery in this city, and Food Rescue DC who makes our work possible. Please sign up for their app to get involved making food deliveries between businesses that have too much food and people who need it.
Assorted Cooking, Fermentation, Ecology, Mushroom, Food Preservation, Land Access, Foraging, and Food Growing Favorites
- National Center for Home Food Preservation: the #1 source in the world for food safety of home preserved foods
- Wild Fermentation (Sandor Katz) - the expert on DIY vinegars, wildcrafting, and wild fermentation
- Bread Science (Emily Buehler) - accessible introduction to making your own bread
- Mastering Basic Cheesemaking (Gianaclis Caldwell) - basic recipes and techniques for making dairy products
- On Food and Cooking (Harold McGee) - encyclopedia of fundamental food and cooking knowledge
- DC Greens - DC-based nonprofit promoting food and health equity, which runs a community farm in Ward 8 (The Well at Oxon Run)
- Mycological Association of Washington, DC - local org promoting mushroom education, foraging, and mycology
- Alexis Nikole- Black Forager - social media educator on foraging knowledge and safety
- Maryland Environmental Trust works with landowners, local communities, and land trusts to protect Maryland's most treasured landscapes and natural resources.
- ECO City Farms Urban Farm Incubator: By opening up county land to smaller scale farmers, they aim to provide support for beginning farmers to launch new farm-based businesses in Prince George's County using regenerative, certified naturally-grown, and organically-grown agricultural best practices.
- Urban Farm Tax Abatement: The District offers up to a 90% (ninety percent) property tax abatement for landowners whose private property is actively used as an urban farm, pursuant to D.C. Official Code §47-868 'Reduced Tax Liability for Certain Urban Farms.'
- Urban Farm Land Lease Program: In partnership with the Department of General Services, DOEE offers select District-owned parcels for lease to private entities to facilitate urban farming on public land in the District
Cooperative Models & Mutual Aid
- DC Community Wealth Builders is a grassroots coalition of small businesses, nonprofits, cooperatives, and individuals dedicated to unlocking the economic power of collaboration and cooperatives. They meet regularly to educate the public about cooperatives, advocate for Community Wealth Building and collaborative forms of economic development, and support the broader ecosystem of economic democracy and small business development. Reach out to them to learn more and join their coalition meetings.
- Many Mutual Aid groups, including one for each Ward, listed from Street Sense Media and The 51st.
- Beloved Community Incubator (BCI) is a solidarity economy movement organization, incubator, lender, and worker self-directed non-profit in the Washington, DC metro region. BCI takes in a yearly cohort of businesses to help sell to their employees, including technical assistance, non-extractive lending, organizing, training, and more. Reach out to them to express your interest!
- Seed Commons is a network of non-extractive lenders that BCI is a part of
- BRED (Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy) is another member of Seed Commons.
- Project Equity is a national group that supports employee ownership more broadly and helps businesses sell to their employees to cooperatives
- US Federation of Worker Cooperatives - One of the groups that advocates for all worker co-ops on the national level.
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