“MANY OF THE BUSINESSES IN [THE] ALLIANCE GO ON TO DO INCREDIBLE THINGS, AND ARE VERY SUCCESSFUL.”
—JOYCE CLARK-HENRY
Paige Curtis: What made you want to get involved with the Community Standards Committee?
Joyce Clark-Henry: I felt joining the committee was a good way for me to give back in the form of resourcing new businesses. I ran for the committee on a platform of healthcare, so it felt important to let business owners know that there were people there with various abilities and resources to share with them, so that they could be successful in their business.
Which one of the Community Standards most resonates with you?
I’ll always gravitate most towards the environmental health-related standards, given my background in public health. One of our standards involves avoiding the use of toxic cleaning chemicals, and making sure employees have access to health insurance. Working with those standards also gave me an opportunity to kind of sit back and think about what chemicals I’m using in my own house. So now I use greener products when cleaning at home like vinegar and water.
I also find the standards around employee access to voting to be very important. I want businesses to let their employees go and vote, knowing how important that practice is.
What is the most common point of feedback you hear from businesses about Ujima’s Community Standards?
Applicants really appreciate the transparency around the application process. I’ve never heard anyone say, “There's so many questions to answer.” If anything, people appreciate the opportunity to have thought about some of these workplace questions after being prompted by the application.
If businesses don’t have something like an employee handbook, the committee offers assistance with building foundations like that. It’s really a learning process, I think, for many of them. We want all of the businesses we work with to succeed, so even if they fall short of the standards, there are still ways we can collaborate and offer resources.
Can you share a major win you experienced while working with the CSC?
For me the most rewarding wins happen when we interview Good Business Alliance applicants. Live interviews give you a feel for what people are talking about in their application and their deeper intentions for their business. It’s really great to hear more about how people built their businesses and what values are important to them. It takes a lot of intention to complete the application, so we want to honor that by providing more space to speak about their business goals.
What is your dream for the future of the Good Business Alliance and the Community Standards Committee?
I think there are certainly ways we can streamline the Business Alliance application in the future. I would also like to see more members on the committee, to expand the scope of our work – there is a lot of exciting work to be done!
I know the committee will always stay true to Ujima’s values and mission. Many of the businesses in Ujima’s alliance go on to do incredible things, and are very successful. That’s why we choose the businesses that we choose: because you see something in them and you know, they're going to succeed. ♡
Joyce Clark-Henry is the Research Program Coordinator for the Center of Clinical Investigation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Clark-Henry’s community leadership experience works to promote, protect and maintain the health of urban communities. She advocates for equal access to health education, care, treatment and research for all people of color, while sponsoring health-related activities such as health forums, fairs and workshops highlighting issues of importance to people of color. Clark-Henry’s is also a practicing Doula since 1998 and continues to support women’s maternal health outcomes. Clark-Henry is a founding member of the Boston Ujima Project, and was elected to sit on the Community Standards Committee in April 2018.
“WE NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT ONCE BUSINESSES ARE ADMITTED INTO THE ALLIANCE, WE KEEP HOLDING THEM ACCOUNTABLE TO THE COMMUNITY STANDARDS. AND, IT’S NOT ABOUT BEING ANTAGONISTIC, BUT MORE ABOUT HELPING THEM FOLLOW THROUGH ON THE COMMITMENTS THEY MADE.”
— MEA JOHNSON
Paige Curtis: What made you want to get involved with the Community Standards Committee?
Mea Johnson: I was a founding member of Ujima so had witnessed that founding process, so joining the CSC felt like a natural fit. In a way I inherited it because I was already sitting at the community standards table.
What is the most fulfilling part of the CSC’s work for you?
The process of creating the standards and then figuring out how to roll them out was really fulfilling. It was rewarding to see the different businesses that applied to the Good Business Alliance, because it was a big process that took time. I'm really proud of the standards and I think figuring out how to apply them, and hold people and businesses accountable is challenging. I don't know if we've gotten as far as pushing businesses to make systemic changes in a deeper way yet, because that’s hard to do.
What is your dream for the future of the Good Business Alliance?
We definitely need to start training new people to like, understand what these committee processes are that we've been stewarding and maintain the vision. We’ve learned so much about how to grow and standardize our practices. It takes a certain level of skill and dexterity to do what we do: working with businesses across different industries, knowing when to hold the line and uphold the standards. But overall, we’re very curious and always seek first to understand business owners and their challenges. None of what we do is transactional, but more about transformation of how we think about good business and serving community needs.
So I think the committee is entering a new phase of transition. As far as the Good Business Alliance, we need to make sure that once businesses are admitted into the alliance, we keep holding them accountable to the community standards. And, it’s not about being antagonistic, but more about helping them follow through on the commitments they made.
When you think about the new year, what are you most looking forward to when it comes to working with Ujima or in your own life?
I do miss coming together for in-person meetings. I’m glad the committee was able to continue its work through the pandemic, lockdown, and figure out how to take care of each other. But there is a certain energy of the space from this group that is just really beautiful. I'm also in the process of launching my own small business, so I’m really excited about that. ♡
Mea Johnson is a community organizer and member-owner at the Dorchester Food Coop. Mea has devoted the last 17 years of her life as a community organizer and an activist, working in Greater Boston and across the country. She has worked on a wide range of issues, from childcare to transit, and currently works with communities that are fighting environmental injustices and pollutant issues.
“AS A COMMITTEE OUR ROLE IS REALLY TO HELP THESE BUSINESSES GET TO WHERE THEY’RE DESTINED TO GO.”
— LUIS COTTO
Paige Curtis: What made you want to get involved with the Community Standards Committee?
Luis Cotto: Well, the mission of the committee really appealed to me personally. Like other aspects of Ujima, the CSC members are nominated by the community and then people have the opportunity to vote on the candidates they like best. I was a solidarity member and was fortunate enough to be nominated, but it was very out of the blue! To this day, I don’t know who nominated me. But, I told myself that if I were elected, I promised to really invest the time to do this work well, and that’s what we did. We spent the first two years of the committee meeting to develop the standards, and it was an amazing experience.
Which one of the 36 Community Standards most resonates with you?
There are a couple of standards around civic participation and civic engagement that I think are really important. This includes how to make voting available to employees and the wider public. There’s also some standards around purchasing from enterprises in the business alliance, as a way of continuing solidarity economy practices.
I really like the standards around protections for all people, irrespective of their documentation status or their gender identity, which forced some great conversations among more traditional mom and pop businesses, that may not have considered it otherwise. Underlying all of these standards is a basic respect for individuals as humans. A lot of businesses have these intentions, but may not know how to implement them.
Can you share a major win you experienced while working with the CSC?
So I’m not originally from Boston, I’m from Hartford, CT. I'm a Hartford boy. But I’ve lived in Boston with my family for ten years, and Egleston is my second home. There is a nativist undercurrent to Boston where outsiders aren’t always accepted. So it’s been incredible to meet and work with some warriors doing great things in the community, and know that I’m part of this network too.
I’m also very proud of the work we’ve done as a committee in the last six months, steadily meeting to approve new businesses in the alliance. We’re starting to see more of the fruits of our labor, and it’s really exciting. I’d say the attribute that all of our businesses in the alliance have in common is that they’re led by awesome people. Everyone has a great story that got them to this point in time. As a committee our role is really to help these businesses get to where they’re destined to go.
What is your dream for the future of the CSC?
The fact that Ujima was able to congregate folks even throughout the pandemic is incredible, and it would be amazing to see how this community in the network can keep coming together.
I think a lot of people would love to participate in the Community Standards committee, but may not have the luxury of time. So, I love the fact that the standards committee is made up of people from the community, in such a way that people who aren’t from Boston – folks like me – can be elected based on their values. Without this kind of participatory process, it would recreate those common dynamics of needing to know someone to participate. ♡
Luis Cotto is a cultural worker with more than three decades of work in Hartford, DC, Seattle, and now, the Greater Boston area. A former owner/operator of an independent coffeehouse and bookstore in Hartford, CT, Luis has since worked to highlight and support "third places" in Black and Brown communities.
Cotto was the Executive Director of Egleston Square Main Street in Roxbury/Jamaica Plain where he established his own brand of "placekeeping," followed by his work with the Mass Cultural Council in charge of the state arts agency's Cultural District initiative. Most recently, he served as Executive Director for the Central Square BID in Cambridge, where he lives with his partner and son.
“WHEN YOU START A BUSINESS, THERE'S SO MUCH THAT YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT HOW TO DO THINGS RIGHT. [...] SO THE FACT THAT UJIMA HAS THAT PLAYBOOK AND IS MAKING IT AVAILABLE TO BUSINESS OWNERS IS EVERYTHING.”
Shironda White — Cupcake Therapy, Founder
Paige Curtis: Can you talk about the need for an endeavor like Cupcake Therapy in Boston, and how you came to start your business?
Shironda White: So I am a foodie with a lot of allergies. One of them is a very severe nut allergy. In the past, I've had several issues with cross contamination of allergens in bakeries and restaurants in the Boston area. So I've always been really careful about where I eat because of that. During the pandemic, I was running a Fintech company that specifically worked with schools.
When schools shut down during the pandemic, our business stalled, and from March to August of 2020 we had no business at all. So I began baking out of boredom, and at the time I was vegan and gluten free, trying different recipes. My friends loved my baked goods so much that I made a website so friends could order what they liked. By the end of 2020, we had so many orders! I actually received a really large order for 60,000 cupcakes, going to 60 different addresses for a virtual gala. I thought it was a typo. [At that] point we had to make it a legal business.
That's incredible! How big is your team now?
Right now we have two full time employees: myself and my mom. We also have some independent contractors who help us with deliveries and other tasks.
What are you most excited about in regards to joining the Ujima Good Business Alliance?
I don't have a background in the food industry. I went to school for entrepreneurship, but you don't really learn how to be an entrepreneur by studying, you learn by doing it. For me, the Good Business Alliance is about learning from people who are ahead of me and already doing the things that I want to do. I enjoy being able to learn from those entrepreneurs, while sharing what I've learned about running a good business.
Even when we talk about what we learned from entrepreneurship, whether it's in business school or through accelerators, you don't learn how to be a good business in the sense of fair processes. You may learn of financial and legal matters, but not how to be a good business, in terms of people, environment, and values.
Which of the Good Business Standards do you find most important?
In terms of labor, we are very committed to paying a living wage and providing good benefits. This is one of the most important things for us. No one on our team, whether it's employees or independent contractors, makes less than a living wage. We’ve started conversations about hiring students from the Madison Park culinary arts program. These are high school students who will be making a living wage, at least $20 an hour, in high school. It wouldn’t make sense to have people working for us who don’t make enough to afford to buy the cupcakes that we're selling.
In terms of the environmental aspects, in the pandemic, we started out using a lot of plastic containers. We've moved away from that. So now we use either compostable containers or paper boxes, and [are] doing our part to avoid a negative impact on the environment. So that's something else that's very important to us.
You might think of things like this as “expensive,” paying people a living wage and using sustainable packaging. But for us, it's the right thing to do. For instance, when you pay people what they’re worth, you get better employees who are more committed, right? So you make up for the costs in that way.
Where do you see Cupcake Therapy going next?
So we're actually working on our first storefront, which we hope to formally announce the location of in the next couple of weeks. If all goes well, it will open in the summer of 2023 and potentially a second space after that.
For the storefront concept, we're really leaning into the whole notion of cupcake “therapy.” So we want the space to feel inviting, comfortable and for folks to feel relaxed when they come in. We’ll be baking onsite, so it’s going to smell amazing too. It won’t just be about cupcakes, we’ll be able to do other bites as well, so it will have a dessert cafe type vibe.
Right now we also ship nationwide, so we’re looking to expand that. Now that we're in a larger commercial kitchen space, we're going to actually start advertising since we haven’t really been advertising. So we’re excited to really invest in advertising and increase our shipping nationwide as well.
Any final thoughts?
Well, I’m so glad the Good Business Alliance exists. When I first applied to the Alliance, there were so many questions that came up in the application form that we hadn't even thought about as a business. When you start a business, there's so much that you don't know about how to do things right. You may not necessarily think to have an employee handbook, or policies in place so your employees feel safe and comfortable. So the fact that Ujima has that playbook and is making it available to business owners is everything. ♡
Shironda White is co-owner of Cupcake Therapy, a premium nut-free, allergy-friendly cupcakery based in Boston that ships nationwide. Shironda has worked on philanthropic initiatives for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the HBCU National Resource Center, and has worked as a fundraiser for both nonprofits and individuals. An alumna of Spelman College, she received her MBA from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business and a graduate certificate in nonprofit management from Harvard University.
“IT'S IMPORTANT FOR US ALL TO EAT WELL, IF WE'RE GOING TO BE WELL AND DO GOOD IN THE COMMUNITY AND IN THE WORLD.”
Kannan Thiruvengadam, Director, Eastie Farm
Jenny Wechter, Climate Corps and Development Manager, Eastie Farm
Paige Curtis: I’m curious about how Eastie Farm came to learn about Ujima. What was your first point of connection to our work?
Kannan Thiruvengadam: Previously, I did some work with the Boston Impact Initiative, and I met Deborah Frieze along the way, so that was probably the first connection point. There was also one instance where Ujima came to East Boston to present, and did outreach to organizations in the area. But I heard about Ujima all over the place doing fun things.
Can you share a bit about how Eastie Farm fits into the broader landscape of urban farms and gardens in Boston?
Kannan: There are other organizations doing similar work, and each has their own slant to this work. There's Boston Food Forest Coalition, Urban Farming Institute, [and] there’s also the Trustees which run community gardens around the city. One of the great things about our farm is that there is no waiting list to join, all of the beds are shared across the community. In our case, East Boston is kind of separated geographically from the rest of Boston and we know that we are in an environmental justice community. So we find food and education to be effective vehicles to do that justice work. We are also located in a food desert. So it's important for us all to eat well, if we're going to be well and do good in the community and in the world. So good food is important to us.
We also bring into people's awareness, the food and fruit trees that already exist in the community to ensure they're not cut down. With mulberry trees, for instance, and things like that, if people don't know what it is they think of it as messy. But if we offer education around them, then they think of it as a treasure in the community. And so we're here to do that kind of education even if we don't own the space where these trees are. Overall, we’re more focused on food, regenerative use of land, and appreciating the nature that's already here, ultimately in support of a livable climate for all of us.
Eastie Farm is the first farming-based organization [and non-profit] in the Ujima Good Business Alliance. How does being in the UGBA advance your goals as a farm?
Kannan: For one, being a business is understood as different from being a nonprofit. There is a view of nonprofits as charity-based, which we’re not comfortable with. We appreciate that Ujima sees us as a business that is growing and navigating new issues as we evolve. When you have more people join the team, now we must figure out how to support employees and compensate them fairly. Ujima and its standards evaluates businesses on those values of equity and how employees are treated.
Jenny Wechter: It’s also important for us to be part of the UGBA to demonstrate that businesses can be regenerative, rather than exploitative. Our model shows that we can have a zero emission greenhouse that produces really high quality food, and brings people together in a joyful way, and these activities allow us to create so many added value products that are positive. We can even make profit and maintain an equity-centered, diverse organization. There's a nonprofit that is also able to actually sustain itself in its work and grow.
What is the Eastie Farm’s team looking forward to this year?
Jenny: Personally, I'm most excited for a dance party in the greenhouse, because we’re going to finally have a permeable floor. I'm most excited about really exposing the youth in our Climate Corps to the realm of possibilities within the world of ‘green’ jobs in creative ways. So I look forward to the youth not only getting their hands on the soil, but to thinking about what it is that they really want to contribute and what they want to learn. We have access to so many different resources within the city of Boston, from beekeepers to legislators, so we’re thinking about how to create a concerted green economy through youth empowerment.
Kannan: I agree with what Jenny shared. I find working with youth very rewarding. From a business perspective, I find our integrated CSA to be super interesting as well. “Integrated” meaning we sell the CSA boxes at market rate, but we also sell at affordable prices and have a free option. Because they’re all integrated together, there’s no stigma associated with purchasing the lower cost or free boxes. This integrated approach helps us bring people of different backgrounds together. We’re able to price the CSA boxes this way because we receive some grants, as a nonprofit business, and this allowed us to break even on the CSA program. We’re learning a lot about how to be more efficient and sustainable as a business. Eventually, we hope that folks paying market rate for CSA boxes will allow us to offer even more low cost options. ♡
The seeds for Eastie Farm were planted in 2015, when several East Boston neighbors, noticing the empty and overgrown plot at 294 Sumner Street, proposed the idea of starting a community farm.
Kannan Thiruvengadam is the director of Eastie Farm, an urban farm in East Boston focused on community resiliency. He also hosts "What's up Eastie?", a radio show about local issues in a larger context, at Zumix, a youth organization in East Boston. Kannan is also a Climate Ready Boston Leader. He has a technology background, has studied climate science, permaculture, and community engagement, and is passionate about regenerative and sustainable practices in agriculture and urban design. Kannan lives with his partner Rudi in historic Belmont Square in East Boston overlooking the harbor and the beautiful Boston skyline.
Jenny Wechter is the Climate Corps and Development Manager at Eastie Farm where she manages organizational development strategy, K-8 educational programs and a fellowship for high school teens. She is also a certified Yoga Instructor. She completed her Master of Education at Harvard, and her B.A. in Psychology at the University of Texas, Austin.