| A Cooperative
Community |
The social planners encouraged the formation of cooperatives to meet many
of the needs of the residents of the three green towns. Only in
Greenbelt did the cooperative movement successfully take hold. The
government had not been able to find merchants willing to move in and
invest in businesses to solve this experimental project. Edward A.
Filene, Boston department store entrepreneur and philanthropist, advanced
$50,000 to organize a cooperative, Greenbelt Consumer Services (GCS),
which would set up and operate the stores in trust for the consumer-owned
co-op which was expected to be organized. The whole town voted for
leaders to set up a cooperative organizing committee in April 1938, and
about 50 active workers in the community began selling stock with the
understanding that the consumer co-op would take over GCS when half the
town's residents became members.
The co-op took over the operation of the stores in January 1940, and it
grew to be a large retail cooperative that operated supermarkets,
gasoline stations, drug stores, and furniture stores. Greenbelt
residents were shocked late in 1983 to learn that the Board of Directors,
without membership input, had decided to sell off all stores and stations
except for the furniture operation. Two citizens' groups formed, one to
fight divestiture and the other to set up a new co-op to purchase the
supermarket and drug store. The new co-op was successful in its
membership and fundraising drives, and took over the stores in June,
1984.
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