The NASCO Cooperative Hall of Fame, created in 1989, honors the best of our movement. We use the Hall of Fame as a means for NASCO member co-ops to provide broader recognition to individuals who have made a truly significant impact. This year, a committee of former Hall of Fame inductees and current NASCO board members selected three individuals to join the Hall of Fame:
Cindy Christiansen, former Director of Major Maintenance for the Inter-Cooperative Council, Ann Arbor, is being inducted for her leadership as a long-term co-op employee and her stewardship of ICC Ann Arbor’s physical properties.
Cindy oversaw more than $20 million in properties over 16 years with ICC Ann Arbor, helping to define the physical identity of buildings called home by hundreds of members. She was not shy about sharing her expertise with members and staff of other cooperatives, and her systems serve as an exemplary model for a thorough and proactive student housing cooperative maintenance program.
It is easy to speak about the work of members in crafting a cooperative’s identity, but it is also clear that Cindy’s personal vision for cooperative houses is at the heart of what makes ICC Ann Arbor a wonderful place to live.
Lillian Mayer and Tom Silva, founders of the Genesee Valley Cooperative, are being inducted for their charisma and perseverance as “movers and shakers,” in recognition of their three-year effort to successfully create a student housing co-op in Upstate New York.
The Genesee Valley Cooperative, which is now in its third year of residential operation, began as a dream in a dorm room. Thanks to the efforts of their organizers, the GVC was able to overcome many hurdles to finally opening its doors. Along the way, the GVC founders advocated for co-ops to the broader student body, fostered community with local residents through regular community meals, helped to start the area’s first Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share, and hosted arts workshops to supplement their local, defunded arts programs.
While Tom and Lillian have both graduated and left the co-op, the spark that they left in Geneseo continues to burn brightly.
The induction ceremony will take place on the Saturday evening of NASCO Institute, November 12, 2016. Please join us in celebrating Cindy, Lillian, Tom, and all of our movement leaders and heroes.