So use that and not this!
no really, go away
Contact Us
email: sherwoodcooperative {at} gmail {dot} com
About Sherwood
The Sherwood Coöp is the last organizational remnant of the Students Coöperative Association started in the '30s by University of Washington students, which at its high point, had as many members as the Ann Arbor and Berkeley campus coöp systems. The SCA sold off all of its holdings in the late '50s.
Sherwood rented our current house from the late 70's until we were able to buy it in 2001. We are proud to own our house and appreciative of the very hard work of former members and community support that made the purchase possible. This also means that we have the added work of maintaining the physical house ourselves.
Presently our coöperative has 13 Members living in a large 1911 house in the University District of Seattle. We are no longer an exclusively student coöp, our members include recent students and community activists as well as students, both undergrad and grad.
We each put in weekly hours to sustain the functioning of the house. We share vegetarian/vegan food and each cook dinner twice a month. We each have a cleaning chore and are part of a work team - Food, Finances, Logistics, Maintenance, or Membership. We have quarterly work parties where we do projects around the house. We also have bi-weekly house Meetings, wherein we check in with each other personally and as a group, talk about how the house is running, address problems, and generally try our best to keep the house comfortable and functional for each member. We are also committed to treating each other with respect and addressing systems of oppression as they may manifest themselves in our house dynamic.
We are members of North American Students of Coöperation (NASCO), and are close to membership in the Evergreen Land Trust (ELT). We are also friends with many other intentional communities in Seattle and part of a group called the Collective of Collectives which was "formed for the purpose of strengthening our member collectives and
the community at large through sharing resources, skills and knowledge and to promote cooperation, democracy and social justice."
Our stated mission is here: Mission Statement. We did our best to make it reflect the specific goals and values of our house. Our passions include: vegan/vegetarianism, experimenting with delicious vats of vegetarian concoctions, music, learning new skills as we fix up our house (we own it!), activism, leftist politics, farming, consensus process, yurts, environmental justice, rockclimbing, homebrewing beer, having jam sessions in our living room, building a bike shed (finished!), composting our food waste, debating current events and theory at our kitchen table, making bread, coöperative living and ownership, skillshares, community pantries, thinking, protesting, dancing, snuggling, having meetings, communal meals, reading radical feminist blogs, growing community, growing gardens, discussing, organizing in the workplace, becoming radical educators, making art, smiling, biking, studying philosophy, history, forestry, design, international studies, physics, geography, music theory, environmental issues, etc.
We emphasize sustainable living and introducing coöperative living as a lifestyle choice beyond school. Our long term goal is for Sherwood to act as an economic and organizational engine for the development of other co-ops. We look forward to pursuing this goal more actively once we pay off our mortgage.
View Our Current Members