When Sandy Holman created the Culture Co-op in 1991, it was an organization whose mission it was “to promote understanding and respect for diversity and equity, cultural competency, literacy and a quality education for all.”
“After working in working in various jobs, I noticed that there was a lot of challenges to being effective in serving whatever the target population was,” Sandy Holman told the Vanguard. She said this was due to the fact that there “was inequity in those institutions, there was a fear in those institutions, and there was a general disrespect for differences that almost followed a color-skin line.”
Sandy Holman looked around and saw that there were institutions that were addressing these problems to an extent, but not in way she wanted to address differences.
“So I decided to create the Culture C.O.-O.P., started it part time in ’91, and then went full-time in ’98,” she said.
She believed that the mission of the organization brought together a number of critical factors to help people be able to thrive in society.
Twenty-two years later, the Culture C.O.-O.P. remains under the direction of Sandy Holman.
According to their web site, “The Culture C.O.-O.P. promotes strength through diversity. Our products and services help foster awareness of and appreciation for our culturally diverse communities. We assist those working with diversity in education, business and the community with special emphasis on products and services for youth and organizations serving youth.
“We offer a variety of other products and services including motivational keynotes, author visits, communication skills trainings and staff retreats as well as many others. We invite you to look further in the Keynotes, Consulting and Trainings section of our site to see if The Culture C.O.-O.P. might be able to assist you.”
The work they perform is policy advocacy, trying to change policies and practices in major institutions such as education and the criminal justice system. The biggest thing they do is in education.
The work they do focuses on “dysfunctional policies and practices,” that Ms. Holman says, “needs to be called out and changed.” They provide trainings and seminars on a regular basis all over the country.
One of the trainings facilitated by Sandy Holman was last December’s Breaking the Silence of Racism event sponsored by the Davis Human Relations Commission. The event featured a panel was comprised of Davis City Councilmember Rochelle Swanson, Chief Deputy DA Jonathan Raven, Reverend Kristin Stoneking of the Cal Aggie Christian Association, UC Davis Executive Vice Chancellor Rahim Reed, Pam Mari from DJUSD and Captain Darren Pytel of the Davis Police Department.
Sandy Holman told the audience that the issue of racism was not a topic that would be solved in the two hours that the event was originally scheduled to go, but it was part of a needed continuing community conversation.
“We want to hear all of your stories and record the memories,” she said told a large audience. “We’re doing it so that when this committee changes, we don’t have to go back to square one.”
The Culture C.O.-O.P. also does a racism mentoring program, much of that is done locally. “The whole thing is to equip young people with the tool kits where they can navigate all of the obstacles thrown at them from all of these institutions.”
They are also working on a “Cost of Darkness” documentary. She said they are working with world renowned experts to make people more aware of how the color of skin “impacts how you’re treated in every major institution.” Ms. Holman added, “It just kind of creates what I call a ‘compounded institutional impact,’ that devastates most all people, but especially vulnerable populations.”
She said that she’s excited about the documentary though noted it will not be a high budget, “but we have been blessed to have people who are renowned in their respective areas contribute to this.” She said this project will be ongoing for a few years.
They are also partnering with Barnes and Noble in a “campaign where we’re going to schools” as a starting place to help make their sites more equitable as they work with youth.
She said her favorite activity is writing children books that are inspirational in nature, with messages about respectful differences.
Sandy Holman told the Vanguard that one of their most successful endeavors involved a location in the mountains of Northern California to go work with high school students. It was a conservative location and the organizers did not tell her that the contact might be dangerous.
She said that would not have stopped her, however, she probably would have brought someone with her.
When she got to the class, she found a bunch of students dressed in army fatigue and as she walked into the room, one of them said, “is that N—-r coming in this room?”
“By the end of our time together, they were dancing, we were talking,” she said. “It gave me tremendous hope… because it was really a very dire situation.”
“Here this young group of racist skinheads in just one hour of interacting with each other, something magical happened and it led me to (realize) how something small could at the end of the day change the trajectory of what happens,” Sandy Holman said.
On Saturday, November 9, Sandy Holman and her organization, The Culture C.O.-O.P. will receive the Vanguard’s Award honoring Organizations in our community performing in the area of legal reform and social justice.
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—David M. Greenwald reporting
