Food Co-op Initiative is excited to be offering a one-time, in-person, immersive training on dismantling racism as individuals and cooperative organizers the day before the Up & Coming Startup Food Co-op Conference in Kalamazoo, MI this September!
WHERE: Radisson Plaza Hotel & Suites Kalamazoo, MI on the lower level
WHEN: 9:00 AM – 2:30 PM Eastern Time, Thursday, September 11, 2025. Lunch will be provided.
WHAT: Facilitators from ERACCE, a Kalamazoo-based anti-racist training and organizing organization, will provide a five-hour immersive space for participants to explore and deepen their understanding of systemic racism and to begin to investigate ways to more effectively dismantle and eliminate racism within food co-ops and the broader food system. More details below!
WHO: this session is for all startup and established food cooperators as well as those that work for food co-op support organizations. We encourage white and non-Black People of Color organizers to attend, and all are welcome.
COST: $100, lunch will be provided. This cost is not included in the conference registration price.
More details about the ERACCE session
During this session, facilitators will utilize the following segments and tools to train about how structural racism functions and ways of disrupting racism in our organizations:
- Community Agreements: An invitation for us to collectively create a courageous space with each other
- Definition of Racism: Offers a common language for participants to examine how racism operates in the U.S. and in institutions, and to base solutions upon
- Center/Borderlands: This power analysis invites participants to think about the relationship between identities, values, our institutions and systemic power, with a critical focus on dominant culture and the role of our institutions in maintaining and perpetuating white dominant ways of being.
- Cooperative Principles & Values: We will bring the cooperative values and principles into the room, and see how they underpin the needed work of addressing racism in our organizations and communities
- Anti Racist Values: Participants will examine how known white institutional values manifest in their institution and begin to think about how we could shift into a new set of values: the anti racist transformative values
We encourage white and non-Black People of Color organizers to attend, and all are welcome.
This session is being offered by FCI and is not part of the larger Up & Coming conference.
