Andrea Golden

Andrea Golden is a popular educator deeply committed to cooperative economics and building collective power. She is Co-Director and founder of PODER Emma Community Ownership, co-founder of Cenzontle Language Justice Cooperative as well as Dulce Lomita mobile home park cooperative, where she lives in western North Carolina with her partner and three children.

PODER Emma develops community ownership and works to stop gentrification and displacement in the Emma neighborhood outside of Asheville, North Carolina. Asheville’s development patterns have put mobile home communities in the crosshairs for displacement. In the face of this pressure, the Emma community has built a flourishing cooperative ecosystem that includes four worker cooperatives, four mobile home park cooperatives, and a real estate cooperative with 25,000 sq. ft of commercial property, totaling nearly 20 acres of permanently protected land and a total community investment of over $6 million.

Andrea and her neighbors’ dedication to place and the cultivation of a sense of belonging, identity and culture have allowed for solutions that prove that, when community comes together, people can transform their lives for themselves and future generations.