De’Nita Wright comes from a family of activists, and has been involved with bringing neighbors together for cooperative organizing around affordable housing and food access in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. She’s the featured guest on today’s episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, hosted by Rachel Quednau.

Wright is the founder of the Coalition of West Louisville Neighborhood Associations and also serves on the board of the Louisville Association for Community Economics. Both efforts are focused on connecting neighbors with one another to build broad-based support for goals like a new community grocery store, or efforts to preserve home ownership in the neighborhood. Wright has watched band-aid government programs try and fail to help her community, and sees outside money making its way into her neighborhood in a negative way.

She’s a strong believer in the power of co-ops as a long-term solution to economic challenges. For Wright, cooperative organizations are the way of the future, ensuring that residents have a say in what takes place in their neighborhood, and have the collective power to make it happen.

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