We spoke with Carole Mannino and Rachel Hamilton, the President of the Board and the Recording Secretary of the Board, respectively, of the Derry Oak Village Cooperative — the 150th resident-owned community (ROC) that we helped establish. Together they painted a picture of the process of learning that their manufactured-home park was for sale, learning how to establish a cooperative that empowered the park residents to buy Derry Oaks, and how we helped them go from frightened to optimistic.

Like every member of the Board, Carole is a volunteer. A resident for eight years, she’s the first President of the Board and hopeful for the future of the 27-unit community.

Rachel has lived in the park for over six years and initially went into panic mode when she heard that the park she called home was up for sale.

As Rachel put it, “We all have beautiful yards, beautiful homes. We didn't want anything to change because we all get along in the neighborhood. We have a wonderful community. Everybody reaches out and helps, and we wanted to maintain that.” 

And of course there was fear of the unknown when she first received the 60-day notice that Derry Oak Village was being sold by the current owner. As she described it, “Well, when I first heard that they were selling the park, the first thing is fear. Where am I going from here? You go into that panic mode. Like, what can we do? Is there anything we can do to avoid losing what we have?”

Carole had similar concerns, “...we were all basically shocked that the park was being sold, and that we had no inkling of it. So I think we were all a little bit panicked about the fact that somebody could buy the park and decide they want to build condos. What we were most panicked about was actually losing our homes.”