Oak Park/River Forest Resilient Communities Forum
On Wednesday, Jan. 31, the Oak Park and River Forest area residents are invited to participate in the Resilient Communities Forum. We will hear first-hand how nations and communities are addressing the challenges of climate change, and explore practical ways in which we can make a real impact locally. The event takes place from 6:30-8:30 pm, at the 19th Century Club, 178 Forest Ave in Oak Park, IL.
At Chicago Community Climate Forum, Participants Connect Around Solutions
Dallas Goldtooth, an activist with the Indigenous Environmental Network who helped stop the Keystone XL pipeline, is still advocating for sustained demonstrations and non-violent actions.
“We need a story of change…of resistance,” he told a gathering of close to 1500 civic leaders, community members, and representatives from 70 civic and environmental organizations that attended the Chicago Community Climate Forum, held Dec. 3 at The Field Museum.
Meet Mindy Agnew: Oak Park's New Sustainability Coordinator
In mid-November, Mindy Agnew took on the role as Oak Park’s new sustainability coordinator, stepping into a post that had been vacant for more than three and a half years.
Mindy’s sustainability pedigree is already well established in Oak Park. She was a member of the team that guided District 97 to incorporate zero waste programs in the schools, beginning in 2008. Since that time, composting, recycling, and zero waste lunches have become commonplace throughout the Oak Park educational system.
Young Filmmakers Workshops Expand
12 Months of Sustainability
Community Solar Rises and Shines
Solar energy deployment is getting super charged on Chicago’s near west side, thanks to a community-based program called PlanItGreen: Solar in Your Community. The program is developing a pipeline of community solar projects to meet the renewable energy goal in Oak Park and River Forest’s PlanItGreen sustainability plan: achieve 25% renewable energy procurement by 2020.
Cities, Universities, Businesses and Communities aren't Waiting
As world leaders gather in Bonn, Germany, for the first UN Climate Change Conference since the Trump Administration pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement, it is clear from the surge of climate change conferences and events in the Chicago region that cities and local government entities, universities, community organizations and businesses are moving forward to take action on climate change and to activate their constituencies to do the same.
Newlyweds Return to Teach Young Filmmakers Workshops
Two Young Filmmakers Workshop teachers will guide the workshops again this year, but as husband and wife rather than an engaged couple. David Arthur Wall and Lauren Travers Wall tied the knot in June, followed by a whirlwind honeymoon in London, Liverpool (The Beatles, duh), Paris, Venice, and Rome.
Youth Learn Leadership via Gardening
This summer a new youth leadership program gave a cohort of Chicago teens a safe and nurturing environment to learn lessons that enriched their lives, as well as the neighborhood where they live. During July, teens in the “I Can Fly” Youth Leadership Program focused on the richness of the soil, not the economic poverty around them; the sweet fruits of labor, not the bitterness of systemic discrimination.