Co-op News | Summer Quarterly 2025
Cooperative Community Fund 2025 Grant Recipients
This year the Co-op accepted a recording breaking 52 applications for our Cooperative Community Fund (CCF) grant program. The CCF Grant Committee, composed of four volunteer Co-op members, had their work set out for them to review, score, and ultimately decide how to give out $20,860. The committee was able to agree on funding 12 projects. The Co-op is working to grow the CCF fund so that we can give even more to local organizations in the future. A gift to CCF is a gift to the community forever, allowing the Co-op to give grants annually based on the dividends earned on the fund. This October, we are raising money for CCF through the Seeds for Change program and hope you will round up at the register.
CUMBRE Humboldt - Scholarships for Science Summer Camp ($2,940)
This project will allow disadvantaged minority children to participate in a science-focused summer camp in their neighborhood in Valley West, Arcata. Even though Arcata is geographically small, the Valley West area is essentially cut off from the rest of the city due to the freeways, making it difficult for children to easily access summer camps or other drop-in centers.
Willow Creek Youth Partnership - Youth Center Foodscape ($2,000)
This project engages youth in designing and initial implementation of a foodscape at the new Dream Quest Community Youth Center in Willow Creek. Our goal is to design a versatile outdoor space where youth can experience growing food, while still allowing space for play, and outdoor projects. The planning stage will include a period to settle into the new site, while brainstorming and having planning sessions with the youth. Our priority is to maximize the limited small space in a way that will engage youth in healthy choices for years to come.
Aquilli Metzli Masa Coop - Post-Harvest Processing Equipment ($2,970)
We are a community-based cooperative that aims to provide seed to table Masa for the greater Humboldt area. We are a group of latinx/indigenous farmers, business owners, students, and community members building space to practice our land-based culture. We are planting over 10 acres of Milpa. Milpa is the traditional diversified plot of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. At the heart of the Milpa is corn, beans, and squash. From the produce we are growing we will process corn into Masa, vegetables into canned salsas, and provide dry peppers, beans, and herbs.
211 Humboldt - Outreach ($1,500)
We connect people to CalFresh, WIC and local hot meals and food pantries throughout Humboldt County. We assist with helping low-income families to apply for CalFresh and WIC. If they call afterhours weekdays or on the weekends we have an emergency food pantry, where we can get them food until they can get either CalFresh or to a local food pantry. We assist everyone in Humboldt County no matter what your race, religion, ethnicity or sexual preference. We have been answering calls in our community from people in Crisis for over 62 years.
Centro del Pueblo Movimiento Indigena Migrante – El Granja Santuario/The Sanctuary Farm ($1,500)
This project aims to cultivate culturally representative foods from Mexico and Latin America, significantly benefiting local Indigenous immigrants from the South, and Latinx communities. The program demonstrates our capacity for impactful, culturally grounded community agriculture. This farm will not only enhance nutritional access but also provide culturally relevant education through intergenerational farming practices, agricultural growing techniques, herbal medicine workshops, and deepening community connections to ancestral food knowledge. This effort also promotes cultural resistance and education on starting businesses and cooperatives for the participants.
Equity Arcata - Home Away From Home ($1,500)
Home Away From Home is a partnership between the City of Arcata, Cal Poly Humboldt, local businesses and community members working to make Arcata a more inclusive and welcoming environment for people of color. Our purpose is to create a welcoming, safe and racially equitable community. Home Away From Home volunteers host potluck meals and household supply distributions, where students are invited to enjoy a (mostly) home cooked meal and are provided with a bag filled with household and personal care supplies and non-perishable food items.
Playhouse Arts – Our Space Arts ($1,000)
Our Space offers a mixed group of housed, housing insecure and unhoused folks, free art classes and opportunities to create art. This innovative project seeks to provide a safe and supportive environment for the unhoused to explore their creativity, develop artistic skills, and use art as a tool for healing and empowerment. The program aims to enhance mental well-being and potentially open new pathways for participants.
Creative Sanctuary- Donation Dash ($1,000)
Each spring as CalPoly students vacate the dorms, thousands of pounds of food, clothing, and household supplies are discarded. Creative Sanctuary co-created and manages a system with CalPoly’s Sustainability Department in which students’ unwanted items are sorted before entering dumpsters as part of the campus-wide Donation Dash event. Sorted items are then redirected towards outlets to be redistributed. Last year the Sanctuary redirected over 10,000lbs from the trash to recycling and compost.
Humboldt Family Service Center (HFSC) - Furniture and Therapy Supplies for One Room ($2,000)
HFSC serves ~350 people per year, and each person has an average of 46 appointments. This results in ~16,000 counseling sessions. This means that at least 1,600 therapy sessions will take place in this therapy room alone this year. This funding is an investment in our community’s mental health and well-being and will ensure that HFSC, a cornerstone of mental health support in Humboldt County, remains a vital resource for years to come.
Heart of the Redwoods Community Hospice (HRCH) - Volunteer Training and Caregiver Skills Workshop ($1,700)
HRCH plays an essential role in providing support that allows many of our community members to remain at home at the end of their life. This workshop will provide both potential HRCH volunteers and current caregivers with the information and hands on experience they need to become an effective part of a care team supporting someone throughout the dying process. Participants will learn how our hospice operates and the integral role our volunteers play in supporting our clients’ “circle of care”.
Northcoast Environmental Center - Compassionate Cleanups ($1,125)
We acknowledge homelessness as an enviro injustice and the production of trash to be a systemic issue, as homelessness itself also is. This program directly meets the needs of increasingly disregarded community members: providing homeless residents with a needed service, engaging and humanizing a vulnerable population, and directly protecting sensitive ecologies by removing waste. Through this work, we are able to better advocate – with the leadership of those experiencing homelessness – for policy solutions to this crisis.
Warrior Institute - Summer Youth Fitness Program ($1,625)
This 8-week program at the Warrior Institute Gym (Hoopa, CA) promotes physical activity, cultural connection and healthy eating. This program helps to address health issues and disparities that lie in our community. The Warrior Institute gym is a non-profit organization with a gym facility available to youth at no charge. Youth who are interested can spend their summer participating in workouts and training at the gym facility as a healthy outlet and positive space to be themselves and strengthen their bodies.
