T H E   T E A M

Our Founders / Board Members

Xochitl Espinosa
Founder and Executive Director

​Xochitl is the Executive Director and Founder of the Co-op Ed Center. She is also a co-founder of the Illinois Worker Cooperative Alliance and serves as a Commissioner of the Cook County Commission on Social Innovation. Previously, she was the Cooperative Project Manager/Developer at Telpochcalli Community Education Project where she organized and trained a group of immigrant women who founded “Las Luciernagas”, a food catering cooperative project. She was also a Worker Cooperative Developer Fellow at Democracy at Work Institute (DAWI). Formerly, Xochitl worked for the National Alliance of Latin America and Caribbean Communities, currently known as Alianza Americas as well as other immigrant rights organizations. Xochitl served in the Peace Corps as a small business development volunteer in Benin, West Africa and has an advanced degree in international public service from DePaul University.

Joan Fadayiro
Board Member​

Joan is a community organizer and Co-Founder of the Cooperation for Liberation Study & Working Group in Chicago, IL. She has participated in and led struggles to improve public education, resist police violence, contend for grassroots-led political power, and most recently, secure and improve long-term affordable housing. Through her organizing, Joan recognized that many of the barriers to community participation were not lack of interest but stemmed from people’s lack of access to quality jobs and ownership of their own labor. Community members have material needs that current movements cannot ignore if they seek to grow. Thus, Joan co-founded the Cooperation for Liberation Study and Working Group to understand and build worker cooperatives as a tool for economic independence and self-determination in Black communities.

Joanna Arellano
Board Member

Joanna  is the Communications & Development Director for Raise the Floor Alliance, where she helps create a collaborative communications strategy for workers’ rights and worker centers in Chicago. Additionally, she manages the RTF grant portfolio, engaging donors and interested stakeholders into the work of RTF. Joanna was formerly the Associate Director for the Office for Peace & Justice of the Archdiocese of Chicago where she managed the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) grant portfolio that funds community organizing and economic development work. She currently sits on the Board of Directors for Chicago Fair Trade and is a huge advocate for workers’ rights locally and globally. Joanna also paints and embroiders while listening to the latest on Radio Ambulante.

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Brian Van Slyke

​Brian is a worker-owner at the TESA Collective, which creates tools, games, and programs for social change. He is also a worker-owner at Make Big Things, which develops and publishes indie games. Brian has worked on projects and games across the country to develop the cooperative economy and other social justice initiatives. Brian is also the creator of games such as Co-opoly: The Game of Cooperatives; Rise Up: The Game of People & Power; Good Dog, Bad Zombie; and more.

Weslynne Ashton

​Weslynne is Associate Professor of Environmental Management and Sustainability at the Illinois Institute of Technology Stuart School of Business. Dr. Ashton’s research focuses on industrial ecology, optimizing water, energy and material resource flows in social systems, and developing entrepreneurial solutions to social and environmental challenges in low income and developing regions. She also examines the adoption of socially and environmentally responsible strategies in small businesses. In 2012-2015, she led a US Department of State grant “Pathways to Cleaner Production in the Americas”, which integrated research, education and implementation of sustainability practices in small and medium enterprises across eight countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Since 2015, she has focused on food-energy-water systems sustainability and equity in Chicago through applied research with urban agriculture and food businesses in the region.

Peter Frank

​Peter has dedicated his career to growing the cooperative movement. Peter and is family spent the last 10 years living in Philadelphia, where he founded the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance and served as the organization’s first Executive Director. He also helped launch the Kensington Community Food Co-op, worked at Mariposa Food Co-op as organizational development coordinator, and served on the board of The Energy Co-op. In 2011, Peter worked as advocacy coordinator.

Working Towards Economic Justice...

​The reality of Chicago is one of lack of access to basic human needs such as decent housing, employment, and healthcare, or educational and financial opportunities for many people of color.  Often quoted as one of the top segregated cities in the country, the racial wealth divide in Chicago is self-evident. Although Blacks and Latinxs together represent over two thirds of the population, they are, nonetheless, relegated to the fringes of the city in both a geographic and economic sense. Today, where only 5% of Whites live below the poverty line, the ratio is 29% and 22% for Blacks and Latinos respectively; black unemployment is four times higher than for their white counterparts, and for Latinos, it two times higher than for the latter, 20%, 5% and 10% respectively (U.S. Census, 2014). Neighborhoods with high levels of poverty are also characterized by high levels of violence, in addition to a lack of access to communities’ basic needs.
The worker cooperative model has been proven to create quality jobs, wealth, ownership, and investment in community development. However, for worker cooperatives to develop and flourish, organizational capacity and support must be established. It is with that intent that The Co-op Ed Center was formed in 2018

​The reality of Chicago is one of lack of access to basic human needs such as decent housing, employment, and healthcare, or educational and financial opportunities for many people of color.  Often quoted as one of the top segregated cities in the country, the racial wealth divide in Chicago is self-evident. Although Blacks and Latinxs together represent over two thirds of the population, they are, nonetheless, relegated to the fringes of the city in both a geographic and economic sense. Today, where only 5% of Whites live below the poverty line, the ratio is 29% and 22% for Blacks and Latinos respectively; black unemployment is four times higher than for their white counterparts, and for Latinos, it two times higher than for the latter, 20%, 5% and 10% respectively (U.S. Census, 2014). Neighborhoods with high levels of poverty are also characterized by high levels of violence, in addition to a lack of access to communities’ basic needs.
The worker cooperative model has been proven to create quality jobs, wealth, ownership, and investment in community development. However, for worker cooperatives to develop and flourish, organizational capacity and support must be established. It is with that intent that The Co-op Ed Center was formed in 2018.