Food, farming, fellowship and beyond.
The Sustainable Sea Cliff Cooperative brings together individuals to form a fellowship. This tight knit community will assist each other through our commitment to the sustenance of healthy, local, organic food, education with regard to injustices among people and the earth and empowerment to make positive change
About You
Section 1: You
First Name
Neda
Last Name
Bokai
Organization
Sustainable Sea Cliff Cooperative
Country
United States, NY
Section 2: Your Organization
Organization Name
Organization Website
Organization Phone
Organization Address
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
Organization Country
United States, NY
Your idea
Name Your Project
Food, farming, fellowship and beyond.
Country and state your work focuses on
United States, NY
Describe Your Idea
The Sustainable Sea Cliff Cooperative brings together individuals to form a fellowship. This tight knit community will assist each other through our commitment to the sustenance of healthy, local, organic food, education with regard to injustices among people and the earth and empowerment to make positive change
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
The Sustainable Sea Cliff Cooperative is unique because it benefits both the individual and the community at the same time, while encouraging healthier living, environmental stewardship and awareness. The individual and the community cannot survive without the other. Individuals come to the cooperative from varying perspectives seeking to derive different personal benefits from their contribution to the cooperative, while at the same time, these varying interests serve to improve our community, feed ourselves healthier nutritional meals, and help feed the disadvantaged who are in need of sustenance.
We are currently developing a partnership with one of the biggest water companies in the United States, Aqua Water. We have been offered a ten year lease of their property for one dollar in order to grow crops and distribute food from local farmers. The SSCC hopes to influence this national corporation, shedding light on their actions while fighting for transparency and corporate social responsibility.
Another unique aspect of our cooperative is that we are documenting via video and our internet site the process that we are going through. In coordination with the Long Island Press, we are publishing a series of articles in the local newspaper that serves all of Long Island. In addition, we are having our entire process from “Seed to Harvest” edited into webisodes that will appear on the Long Island Press website. We hope to use this documentation of our experiences to help benefit other food cooperatives and to serve as a model for those who wish to go forward in their own local communities.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
In our short existence as a non-profit, the Sustainable Sea Cliff Cooperative has had a tremendous impact in our community and more importantly, laid a solid foundation for our growth and future survival. We have already developed partnerships with two key local business in our community: Aqua Water, the largest private water company in American, and Roots restaurant, a local restaurant specializing in organic food as well as experienced in Community Supported Agriculture. Aqua Water has offered the SSCC a ten year lease agreement to use their 1.76 acre property as well as their building for the distribution of food. This agreement will cost us $1. In addition, Roots restaurant has partnered with us through their leadership. The chef/owner and sponsor of an existing CSA has joined our Board of Directors.
In addition to our local business partnerships, the SSCC has received the full support of the Mayor and the Board of Trustees of the Village of Sea Cliff. The village has offered to donate a small area of its own land to the SSCC. In addition, one of the Trustees of the Village of Sea Cliff has joined the Board of the SSCC to further unite the community and achieve our mission.
Finally, our partnership with the Long Island Press, a regional media outlet and KIOLI (Keep It On Long Island), a corporate-underwritten organization that is looking to support a local food cooperative has been invaluable to our success.
Problem
Our organization is addressing:
• the lack of suburban participation in and commitment to organic food production
• the lack of available (non toxic) farming land in suburbia
• the lack of awareness of the impact of industrial pollution
• the lack of awareness regarding ethical food systems (e.g. fair trade)
• the absence of non profit alternatives to large corporate producers
• the absence of consensual decision making and active democratic participation in suburban communities
Actions
The board and committees have committed to meeting regularly.
We are negotiating with the Village Mayor and trustees, with the County offices, with local businesses and schools.
We are working with local press and other non-profit groups in Long Island.
We are negotiating a ten year lease with a privatized water company to house our food distribution as well as the farm at the same location.
We are concentrating on building strong relationships with the above so that our support network has a broad base. This is particularly important given that Aqua's business ethic may in the future contradict the co-operative ethic of sustainability of the SSCC Having this broad support across community organizations will ensure that the SSCC can act as a model to other parts of Long Island and beyond. We will not be seen as an exclusive group, and our actions (whilst radical in terms of effecting change in our community) will not be interpreted according to political ideology
Results
Having this broad support across community organizations will ensure that the SSCC can act as a model to other parts of Long Island and beyond. We will not be seen as an exclusive group, and our actions (whilst radical in terms of effecting change in our community) will not be interpreted according to political ideology.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
During the first year we will focus on raising community awareness through education, collaboratively working with schools and community members to renovate the distribution center, and to prepare the farmland (applying permacultural principles). This preparatory planning includes creating raised beds (Hugelkultur), swales and ponds (different microclimates) so as to address the issue of the high water table in our farm. We hope to transpose plants that have already been grown organically from seed by the end of spring.
Our second year will concentrate on establishing a greenhouse so that we may grow food all year around. Also in this second phase, we will be planting an orchard, and continuing with the educational mission by holding permaculture workshops for the Long Island community, partnering with the local school districts. We seek not only to educate children (K-12) the concepts and practical ways of growing food, but also the value gained from working together for the larger community rather than individual gain. We hope to develop camps and hands-on programming for disadvantaged inner city children during the summer.
Having established a strong, sustainable co-op on the North Shore, we will spend our third year reaching out to other communities on Long Island so that they may see the benefits of co-operation and organic farming. We will continue to build a movement of changemakers, through weekly film screenings, lectures and workshops.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
We rely on member’s participation in all aspects of the operation so it is natural that we would need full support and exposure to the community. This organization has to address the community’s need and requirements. This can mean that is important having the farm/distribution center be accessible to the community and at a convenient location as well as eliminating any possible termination of the lease provided to us by the water company(currently stated on the lease that both the licensor and the licensee may elect to terminate this license for no reason whatsoever).
How many people will your project serve annually?
101‐1000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
$1000 - 4000
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Yes
Sustainability
What stage is your project in?
Operating for less than a year
In what country?
United States, NY
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
No
If yes, provide organization name.
How long has this organization been operating?
Less than a year
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
No
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government?
No
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
The main aspect of the partnership is covering the basic fact of lack of available undeveloped piece of property in our village and for that matter any where close to our vicinity.
The partnership with Aqua Inc, the privatized water company allow our organization to operate at the lowest overhead possible (they are leasing us the land for the price of one dollar a year) thus creating endless possibilities to reinvest our members contribution towards future desirable ventures.
Without this partnership, members will have to drive a much further location to work each day. This will create an undesirable situation since the ideal would be to have the place of distribution and the farm at the same location
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
1-To ensure the farm is a visible success, not simply in terms of produce but in terms of active and committed participation of members
2-To ensure that the co-op is part of the food movement nationally as well as NYC, rather than an isolated enterprise
3-To ensure that due procedure is followed in terms of elections of the board members and membership voting and also by letting members know the coop belong to them
The Story
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
As someone with an Architectural and Design background, I have long been disappointed by the lack of regard for the common good within the private sector, which is more commonly characterized by its singular focus on profit-making enterprises, no matter the non-fiscal expense involved.
While turning to a broader vision of social & environmental concerns, I came upon permaculture/ Permaculture both involves the conscious design and co-creative evolution of agriculturally productive ecosystems and economically just social systems which have the diversity, stability and resilience of “natural” systems. The harmonious integration of landscape and people provides food, energy, shelter alongside other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.
Through connecting with people who privileged ethics above profits, it became apparent that the practice of permaculture enhanced the development of liberating mental, emotional and spiritual ways of being, and thereby could provide a sustainable and secure place for all living things.
The most important turning point was attending the Brooklyn Food conference in 2009. Already equipped with an education in permaculture and conscious of the growing global food and water crises, I was exposed to an array of consciously liberated people (including farmers from around the globe) who were already acting on social, political and environmental issues and sharing their process at the Brooklyn food conference. Their courage was a huge motivating factor for me to mobilize my own suburban community to work towards global change.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
Neda Bokai is one of those rare people who have a vision and thenceforth feel morally obliged to make that vision a physical reality. In any movement that seeks to enact serious change, the individual does not simply one day come up with an idea and painlessly follow its success. Rather, it is through a strange convergence of a variety of factors, years in the making, that lead up to the point of epiphany where action is taken. Fortunately for the Sustainable Sea Cliff Cooperative, Neda is not an idealistic dreamer who wants to change the world but does not have a plan, or the tools to implement that important pathway on the road to success. Rather Neda Bokai comes with the experience of an immigrant, an educated Architect as well as having a license in the international field of Permaculture. She has been actively involved in the formation of a group of food cooperatives that look at best practices in the field. Neda is on a mission and absolutely nothing will stop her in this quest to bring together a group of individuals who are committed to community service and are in constant pursuit of an ethically just society.
A native of Iran, Neda has understood the value of social participation. She has understood the power of people to resist forces of society that move toward greed and self-interest. Neda has recognized that she alone is powerless, and her goal is to fight for social change by bringing together lawyers, teachers, film-makers, accountants, restaurant/chef owner and politicians. Already, Neda has recognized the essence of her ideals by reaching out to a variety of local community members who each have their own strengths that they offer to this burgeoning non-profit and, at the same time, bring forth a variety of different goals which together represent the vision of this organization that will truly be a lasting catalyst of change. All of these individuals are committed to societal change, and together their ethical commitment to the SSCC will create change in our local environment. By so doing, even this corner of suburbia can be an example to the world of how to enact change for the global good.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Through another organization or company
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
Brooklyn Food Coalition e-Newletter
 | 164 weeks ago neda Bokai submitted this idea. |
