FAQ

What makes a co-op? 

Generally, a cooperative, or co-op, is any arrangement in which people voluntarily work together for their mutual and/or shared benefit. The Lucy Stone Cooperative is a group equity co-op. This means that we own our house in common through our nonprofit organization (Unitarian Universalist Community Cooperatives) and is run by its Board of Directors.

Housemates pay rent to the nonprofit (UUCC), but no individuals gain private equity. Equity is accrued over time to help create more co-ops and keep the rent affordable.

Another way we are cooperative is through our communal living structure. Our communal living structure includes shared chores and living space with private housing rooms. We share multiple common spaces, several meals a week, and regular house meetings for fun and co-op business.

What is life like at Lucy Stone? 

Life at the Lucy Stone Cooperative is rich: from covering each other’s chore shifts and waking up to surprise pancake breakfasts, to having hard conversations about where our values intersect with our decisions, we take time to listen deeply to one another and to our own hearts.

We have learned, again and again, that community can be built far beyond the walls of this house, and that through community and through cooperation, we can do more together than any of us can do alone.

What is Unitarian Universalism? 

Unitarian Universalism is a liberal faith tradition with roots in the protestant Unitarian and Universalist denominations. We have a diversity of “big picture” theological beliefs, but tend to agree that how we live and treat one another here-and-now is what matters most, and that we are called to build communities of love, transformation, and justice. Check out more about what we believe here.

Who was Lucy Stone? 

Lucy Stone (1818-1893) was a Unitarian speaker, editor, and organizer in the early abolitionist and women’s suffrage movements. She was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree, the first woman to make her living as a full-time speaker for women’s rights, and the first woman to publicly keep her maiden name in marriage.

Lucy Stone, for whom our first house was named