We met the founder of Co-operate WNC, Zev Friedman, at Earthaven Ecovillage. Earthaven Ecovillage is an intentional community near Asheville that focuses on learning and living sustainably through natural building, organic farming, and community collaboration.
Zev walked us around the neighborhood where we saw gardens and a set of solar panels, that took up about as much space as someone’s backyard swimming pool, but powered 19 family’s homes with energy from the sun.
We sat on the forest floor to talk about the mutual aid society Zev founded called Co-operate WNC.
Co-operate WNC is a regional mutual aid society whose mission is to meet human needs and address economic and social challenges through regional scale cooperation.
The simplest way to explain what a Mutual Aid society is that it’s a beneficial association that seeks to provide its members with more than monetary assistance, but support especially in the face of loss or economic and social threats – like climate change to give an example.
