Austin Grown is a partnership between BUILD Chicago, One Earth Collective, and After School Matters. Austin Grown teaches an annual summer youth cohort to plant and maintain an urban farm while also educating about healthy food systems, food justice, restorative environmental justice, green entrepreneurship and community-building. All youth earn a stipend while they work and while they learn. The urban farm even houses a flock of 9 chickens and uses solar panels to generate electricity! The youth took part in virtual speaker sessions, chef demos, healthy food tastings, and an eye-opening field trip to Chicago Eco House this summer.
Reversing Environmental Rollbacks
In November 2017, I participated in a panel discussion on climate change policy in Indianapolis, headlined by a then-former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assistant administrator named Janet McCabe. She had left EPA at the beginning of the Trump administration and taken a post as director of the Environmental Resilience Institute at Indiana University. When asked what could be done to thwart the administration in its effort to roll back environmental protections, Ms. McCabe offered some ironic assurance.
First Virtual Movie Club Night A Great Success
The first-ever Virtual Movie Club Night kicked off on July 15 with a discussion of the documentary “The Ants and the Grasshopper,” directed by Raj Patel and Zac Piper. Exclusively for One Earth Collective Members (membership starts at $25 annually), the Virtual Movie Club will meet regularly to analyze environmental films, provide like-minded community, and promote change. New members are welcome to join at any time.
Join the Circular Economy: COMPOST
Keeping food waste out of landfills via composting is a perfect example of how the circular economy can work. Following is a list of Chicagoland composting resources recommended by Jonathan Pereira of Plant Chicago. For those outside of Illinois, search for similar resources in your area to get involved.
The Circular Economy: Part 1
Q: How has the past year—the pandemic year—affected your work and the work of those you partner with?
A: Growers and food companies that had been selling to restaurants had to go more to a retail model or not exist. After the lockdown began and Illinois was put under a shelter-in-place order, Plant Chicago helped farmers pivot toward online sales. And, despite the challenges, we re-launched the farmers market in Davis Square Park, opened our year-round marketplace, offered subsidized local food boxes, piloted a shared-use indoor victory garden, and began accepting food scraps for composting from neighbors. We store the food scraps on site for Urban Canopy to haul away. We’re just now transitioning back into working in person, and we interact with the public a lot, so we’re still masking and probably will be for a while.
GCC Midwest Becomes One Earth Collective
We’re getting a new look and a new name! GCC Midwest Inc. is now One Earth Collective. Our 501(c)(3) organization will retain the same board of directors and has a new logo and new digital home at www.oneearthcollective.org.
One Earth Collective has three program areas: One Earth Film Festival, which celebrates its 10th anniversary season in 2021; One Earth Youth Voices, which focuses on programs for youth ages 8-25; and One Earth Local/Green Community Connections, which focuses on local sustainability programs in Oak Park and River Forest, Illinois.
GCC/One Earth Expands Board of Directors from 4 to 7 Members
The Green Community Connections/One Earth Board welcomed three new members at its November board meeting. They will join the other 4 sitting directors. We are grateful and excited to have them join the board. Their unique talents, expertise and perspectives will help us further our mission to support the growth of environmental awareness and inspire the adoption of solution-oriented actions through inclusive educational events and programs.
Below are biographies and brief Q&As for each of our new directors so you can learn a little about their background and what they will bring to our organization.
Two Secrets in a Chrysalis: Butterfly Guardians Remembered
The art show “Third Coast Disrupted: Artists + Scientists on Climate” was scheduled to close on Friday, Oct. 30, but will reopen Monday, Jan. 11, and continue through Friday, Feb. 19, at Columbia College Chicago’s Glass Curtain Gallery, 1104 S. Wabash.
After seeing the show recently, one of its artworks continues to haunt me.
This Land Was Their Land: Forest Preserves Honor Native Americans
Begin with this: Today, nearly 65,000 Native Americans, representing more than 100 tribal nations, live in Chicagoland—making this one of the largest urban Native American populations in the country.
Move on to this: I have lived in Chicagoland for over 30 years, and I only recently learned what I’ve just told you. For this new awareness, I credit the Cook County Forest Preserve Foundation’s October symposium, called “Racial Equity and Access to Nature.”
How Community Solar Saves Us Money While Helping the Planet
Like many other Oak Parkers, our family tries to live in an environmentally responsible way. We compost food waste, eat meat-free and organic, and drive electric cars. When we lived in a single-family house, we imagined installing solar panels on the roof, but it wasn't practical or, at the time, affordable. When we downsized into a condo, we faced the challenge of getting buy-in from our fellow owners to add a rooftop solar array, and the available space would have been too small to make much of a dent in our building’s electricity consumption.