Protecting the quality of rural life in Southeastern NC & promoting responsible & creative solutions that Improve the lives of all our people and the places we live. The Coop has a 38-year history of successfully and sustainably organizing social and environmental justice through the former Center for Community Action (CCA), co-founded by Donna Chavis and Rev. The Coop has a multiracial staff of s
ix members with over 100 years of nonprofit and community organizing experience. Our Major Projects are:
*** Robeson County Disaster Survival and Resiliency School - The mission is to organize and engage community residents impacted by climate disasters as leaders and equal partners in revising and redeveloping their communities and lifeways. The Disaster Survival School aims to achieve successful disaster recovery by utilizing community organizations. Its key strategy is to empower those impacted by disasters to lead and own their response efforts in partnership with public and private agencies. The school's ultimate goal is to restructure the entire disaster response system, where residents become the designers and directors of every stage, resulting in a more resilient community. The school meets monthly and usually has 20-40 members in attendance. Its primary focus is on the county's South and West Lumberton areas, the hardest hit areas by Hurricanes Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Florence in 2018. These communities are predominantly made up of people of color, primarily Black and Indigenous, and are still recovering from the disaster. The Robeson County School is not an ordinary school. It is based on the Black "Citizenship Schools" tradition and the Indigenous "Survival Schools." Its approach is culturally responsible and empowerment-based, utilizing community-based organizing, participatory practices, and action for effective and successful outcomes. Projects of the Disaster Survival and Resiliency School include:
(1) The Homeowner Disaster Recovery Project documents every homeowner in hurricane disaster areas and where they are in the disaster recovery process. The project involves street leaders and formal researchers who use tax records and GIS (Geographic Information System) data to document recovery and resiliency indicators. Without a comprehensive assessment of every homeowner in a community, no public or private agency can measure, evaluate, and compare where a community or community is, as a whole, in the disaster recovery process. (2) Disaster Survival Tours are held in South and West Lumberton. The hour-long tours include visiting various sites and streets in the two census tracts, including stories of Hurricane Matthew and Florence, and discussing challenges and solutions related to disaster recovery and resiliency. The tour also includes state and federal policy recommendations that support community empowerment and engagement in the recovery process and the local and state plans and efforts to mitigate the flooding in West and South Lumberton. (3) The Access to Health Care in Disaster Project documenting the problems and recommended solutions of disaster-impacted residents to local, state, and federal officials regarding changes throughout the disaster system to improve quality health care access during and following disasters.
*** Environmental, Energy, and Climate Justice Project - The Coop is the leading, multiracial, environmental, energy, and climate justice organization in Robeson County and Southeastern NC. The Coop, a community-based organization, has achieved significant successes in organizing efforts to promote environmental and public health in Robeson County and the Southeastern NC region. One of the achievements was the cancellation of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, and the closure of the AERP wood pellet facility and NCRP. Both facilities were well-documented polluters in Robeson County. The Coop works in collaboration with Red Tailed Hawk Collective, the Lumber River Keeper Program, the Robeson County Black Caucus, and other community, regional, and statewide partners to achieve these successes. The Coop is also a founding member of the Impacted Communities Against Wood Pellet Coalition, which is organizing to challenge and halt the wood pellet industry in NC. The industry is causing significant pollution in four low-income, racially diverse, rural counties and destroying thousands of acres of forests throughout Eastern NC every year. Enviva, a foreign-owned company, has four facilities that create wood pellets and export NC’s #1 natural resource for overseas use as fuel to generate electricity. Despite claims of being a renewable source of energy and good for the climate, the industry has been challenged by scientists, impacted communities, and policy advocates as a false and fantasy solution to our energy and climate crises. The Coalition is a partnership with impacted community organizations, Dogwood Alliance, and other state and national organizations. The Coop is also a founding member of the new Southeast Coalition for Clean Energy, along with Red Tailed Hawk Collective, Friends of the Earth, and the Lumber River Keeper Program of Winyah Rivers Alliance. The Coalition's focus is opposition to the Piedmont Pilot Project, a massive waste-to-energy (ala “biogas”) initiative in NC. The initiative has been approved twice in six years by the NC Utilities Commission without disclosure or engagement of impacted communities. It includes plans to collect, pipeline and process methane gas from 15 to 43 hog operations in Robeson and Scotland counties and sell it to Duke Energy and Piedmont Natural Gas, its subsidiary. Despite being touted as a source of renewable energy and good for the climate by industry, the controversial claim is widely challenged and opposed due to the significant bio-hazards that result from the industry and their impact on environmental, public, and climate health.
*** Long Leaf Pine Regional Resiliency Hub - The Coop is involved in coordinating one of the two Resiliency Hubs in Southeastern North Carolina, in partnership with the NC Climate Justice Collective. The Longleaf Pine Resiliency Hub brings together stakeholders from Robeson, Scotland, Richmond, Hoke, and Cumberland Counties on a monthly basis. This project is the latest initiative of the Coop and aims to foster regional collaboration between 2023-2024, focusing on multiple environmental, energy, and climate justice issues affecting BIPOC and low-income communities.
