COOPERATIVE HEALTH CARE ASSOCIATES -- South Bronx, New York

Twenty-seven-year-old Theresa Gladden never imagined being part-owner of a business in one of the nation's fastest growing industries. Selling socks on a Harlem street corner, Theresa struggled to provide for her four-year-old daughter, until one day she discovered a newspaper ad for home health aide applicants with Cooperative Health Care Associates (CHCA.) Four weeks of vigorous training later, Theresa not only had a full-time job with benefits, but a unique stake in her job. CHCA, a worker-owned cooperative serving the South Bronx, employs and trains low-income women in how to run a viable company.

"Before I went to CHCA it really didn't matter to me what was going to happen two to three years from now," says Theresa, working as an aide for one year. "But now I'm grounded. I feel like I am at a point in my life where things are happening for me." Offering a benefits package and wages 20 percent higher than most home health care jobs, CHCA also boasts a retention rate three times better the national industry average.