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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Recent research shows that birds are far more capable than we once thought. They have keen visual intelligence, navigation skills, and empathy. They solve problems, make tools, and even innovate.
“The Genius of Birds” by Jennifer Ackerman, which observes this first-hand, will be the subject of the next four meetings of the Austin Gardens Book Club. All are welcome to this free book discussion.
Green Community Connections was pleased to partner with so many incredible partners for its inaugural I Can Fly Youth Leadership Program this summer. Learn about I Can Fly! See photos from the program, review the program backgrounder, and meet the wonderful partners and supporters who made it all possible.
“Visitors loved seeing the goldfinches on the anise hyssop and cup plants, the monarchs landing on the swamp milkweed and bumblebees everywhere. There were literally ‘oohs and ahs,’” says garden host Adrian Fisher. With Mother Nature’s cooperation, the Interfaith Green Network, Green Community Connections and West Cook Wild Ones hosted a successful “Birds, Bees & Butterflies: A Native Garden Tour” in Oak Park and River Forest on August 6.
