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7. Founding ValleyCare Cooperative In early planning for the NVP, Ken Galdston had discussed with Waterbury leaders the possibility of starting an employee-owned business to serve the community and to provide jobs, including “homemaker service for the elderly .”1 But the NVP had rapidly been projected into struggles over the factory shutdowns that were devastating the Naugatuck Valley. The project was largely known for its work around Seymour Specialty Wire, Century Brass, and dozens of other plant closings. But over the next few years, while still engaged in ongoing struggles over plant closings, the NVP began responding to other local needs, such as improving community services and creating new jobs.2 One of the side effects of deindustrialization was the destruction of local businesses and the “demarketing” of local communities by retail chains. When Waterbury’s last major downtown supermarket closed, residents had no way to shop. The NVP initiated a campaign to get large food stores in surrounding areas to establish a van-pool system to serve elderly residents in Waterbury high-rises. It was led by two retirees, retired nurse and NVP leader Ethel Spellman and her husband, Ed. Doreen Filipiak, a home-care worker who was active in the NVP, recalled, “In the process of Ed and Ethel working on that they got into the elderly housing complexes in Waterbury and discovered that there was a lot of elderly people out there who were not getting good care. Many of them were getting no care at all.” Some had aides, “but it would be different people every day, and sometimes it was frightening for them because they never knew who was coming. Sometimes no one would come at all.” Filipiak added that Ethel Spell- man “being a retired nurse said something has to be done. So already being involved in the NVP, she brought the idea to the board, and they discussed it, and they decided to start a home-care committee. And Ed and Ethel were on that committee, and there were several other people. I was asked to join it because at that time I was working for a home-care agency.” Over the next two years, the committee grew to a dozen members, including retirees who had personal concerns regarding care for the elderly and health care professionals ranging from home health aides to case managers to supervisors, disability activists, and social workers. Several of its white, black, and Hispanic members had strong church or synagogue affiliations, and virtually all had prior experience in NVP projects. Doreen Filipiak remembered : “You had Ethel, who was a nurse, [and] Mike Valuckas, who had the handicapped people, so he knew another whole range of people who were in need. So everyone that came into the committee basically had a reason to be there—like I was in home care, so I worked with the elderly, the same as Ethel did.”3 Almost from the beginning, the NVP and the Health Care Committee envisioned a new venture whose intertwined goals would be home-care services and job creation. Their initial idea was to provide cooking, homemaking, bathing, chores, and possibly feeding to the elderly, acutely ill, long-term ill, and terminally ill.4 A worker-owned business would provide stable, goodquality jobs that would not leave the area, develop leadership among the low-income valley residents who would work for the enterprise, and add to the hoped-for fleet of local companies allied with the NVP. The committee conducted an informal needs survey among elderly people in Waterbury high-rises. Through contacts in local parishes, they found and interviewed owners and managers of the buildings. With help from the ICA, theybeganprefeasibilityresearchofthemarketforservices,theavailableworkforce , management and governance, and financing for an employee-owned company.5 The ICA had already helped set up a cooperative home health care company, Cooperative Home Care Associates, with impoverished minority employees in the South Bronx. The CHCA seemed to be flourishing, which made the NVP project seem a realizable goal rather than a pipe dream. In the fall of 1989, the ICA’s Seth Evans was joined by Connecticut homecare nurse consultant Carolyn Humphrey and Rick Surpin, CEO of the CHCA, to develop a feasibility study and business plan. Meanwhile, NVP staff began writing grant proposals to support the work. The Lilly Foundation came through with an initial planning grant of twenty-seven thousand dollars, and the project was on its way. 112 c h a pt er 7 [3.142.197.198] Project...

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