Local food resources
The Putting Down Roots Sustainability Salons have continued each month. The second Sustainability Salon (as well as the 14th, 15th, 26th, 27th, 38th, 39th, 51st, and 52nd) focused on food -- growing it, sourcing it locally, and eating more humanely. Afterwards, Maren put together a list of many such local sources: CSA farms, farmers' markets, grassfed and humanely raised meats and dairy, natural foods suppliers, bakeries, and advocacy organizations. This list now resides on a growing Resources section of the Putting Down Roots Blogger site.
Jun 26: Young Voices for the Planet educator workshop
Young Voices for the Planet is a series of short films about activist kids, making a difference in their communities and in the world. Topics range from solar panels to sea level rise, plastic straws to planting trees, oil spills to environmental racism. YVFP welcomes educators of all backgrounds to learn how to empower the next generation of environmental stewards. Using these amazing films and the Civic Engagement and Democracy curriculum as resources, this inspiring workshop addresses climate change education through real-life youth success stories tackling local Pittsburgh environmental issues. We will show you how to bring our A.C.T.I.O.N Plan to life in your own classroom and community! 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Pittsburgh Botanic Garden (799 Pinkerton Run Road, Oakdale, PA 15071). Registration $15 (& $5 for Act 48 credits); please register online here. For any questions, please contact Kimberly Gutzler (YVPF) by email or at (202) 476-9141. Facilitation and Act 48 credits provided by Allegheny Land Trust. Hosted by the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden in collaboration with Fern Hollow Nature Center.
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Teaching Kids to Protect Their Future & Save the Planet!
Young people are concerned about many issues and want to make a difference. Teachers are asking what they can do to help empower students.
When young people DO speak out, their voices have power! At the COP24 climate talks, the voice most covered by the media was that of Swedish 15-year-old Greta Thunberg addressing the UN: “Our political leaders have failed us… We are facing an existential threat and there is no time to continue on this road of madness.”
In the next 6 months, Pittsburgh area institutions, partnering with Young Voices for the Planet and NY Times best-selling children’s book author and fillmmaker Lynne Cherry, will be hosting a series of workshops to help teachers help students to be heard. The workshops provide ACT 48 CREDITS while teaching educators how to:
- help students overcome doom and gloom and be energized by hope
- help students create an ACTION PLAN to address local Pittsburgh issues.
The workshops center around the true stories in the Young Voices for the Planet short documentaries featuring youth taking the lead, creating solutions, changing laws, changing minds and changing society. These stories reach hearts and inspire action.
Featured speakers: Lynne Cherry; Heather Harr, League of Women’s Voters; Jessica Kester, Allegheny Land Trust; and local youth speaking out for their environment.
Pittsburgh is the ideal place to launch this Civic Engagement and Democracy pilot workshop because the city’s sustainability goals serve as a guiding light for the rest of the country.
The workshops are sponsored by The Heinz Endowments and the Garden Club of Allegheny County.
To learn more about workshops and registration, please click here. https://www.youngvoicesfortheplanet.com/workshops/
Jun 22: DRYerson Festival
Spend the afternoon with the Center for Coalfield Justice and your friends and neighbors to celebrate the progress they’ve made in our fight to protect Ryerson Station State Park. The 13th annual DRYerson Festival will be held on Saturday, June 22nd from 1-4 PM at Pavilion 2 in the Park. This year’s celebration will feature live music from Bree Otto (you loved her last year, and so she’s back), games (with prizes), a soaking-wet-sponge toss (all the fun of water balloons with no waste), and other fun surprises! The festival is pet-friendly, and our staff highly encourages you to bring your pooch on a leash (or a cat if your cat will let you put a leash on him/her) to join in on the festivities! Summer classics like hot dogs, pasta salad, and watermelon will be offered throughout the day, but this year we’ll also be serving summertime fun in the form of snow cones and cotton candy. Again this year, in order to speak to our values and support another one of our campaigns, we will limit our use of plastic, so we will have reusable plates, cups, and utensils provided by Our Children Our Earth: Toys, Silks, and Eco-Goods. Worried that you’ll only be able to make it for a brief time? There will be door-prize drawings throughout the Festival for everyone who checks in at the registration table!
Let CCJ know you are coming to event by registering on this page. Call in at the office (724-229-3550) if you want to volunteer or want to know more about the event! Also, stay connected to event plans at our Facebook event page!
Jun 8: Labor/Environment Roundtable
Labor and Environmental Coalitions: A Must for Survival of Both
Keynote Speaker: Joe Uehlein – Labor Network for Sustainability: dedicated to Making a Living on a Living Planet!
Joe Uehlein is the President of the Labor Network for Sustainability. Joe previously served as Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO’s Industrial Union Department, and as Director of the AFL-CIO Center for Strategic Campaigns. Joe also served on the United Nation’s first commission on global warming from its inception in 1988 until 2003. Joe started his trade union work at an aluminum extrusion mill in Mechanicsburg, PA as a member of the United Steel Workers (USW), and then worked heavy and highway construction as a member of the Laborers Union, LiUNA Local 158 in Central Pennsylvania.
Panel Response to Keynote address:
Chris Petrone, Legislative Director for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 66
Rosemary Bezy, Vice-President, USW Local 1557, US Steel Clairton Works
Eva Resnik-Day, Community Organizer with the Sierra Club’s Ready for 100 Campaign to bring the City to 100% renewable clean energy
Tina Doose, President of Braddock Borough Council
Patty DeMarco will direct breakout into small group sessions to discuss ideas and proposals drawing on the participants’ work experience, knowledge and ideas to begin filling in the blanks in the Green New Deal. Patty is the author of Pathways to Our Sustainable Future- Global Perspective from Pittsburgh, and a member of the Forest Hills Borough Council, 2016-2020
1:30 to 3:00 p.m. at the Pump House, 880 East Waterfront Drive, Munhall PA 15120. Free and open to the public. Program Co-Sponsors: Izaak Walton League of America Allegheny County, United Electrical Workers Union (UE), Pittsburgh DSA Eco-Socialism Committee, Pittsburgh Human Rights City Alliance.
Jun 1: Wild & Scenic Film Festival
The Pennsylvania Resources Council and Allegheny CleanWays will host the 5th Annual Pittsburgh Wild & Scenic Film Festival presented by SYRCL (South Yuba River Citizens League). The screening will be held in Point Park University’s new PNC Theatre in the Pittsburgh Playhouse where the setting will match the beauty and inspiration of the films!
Join us starting at 6pm to interact with regional nonprofit organizations, learning about issues relating to litter, river health, air quality, and more. Sign up with these organizations as a volunteer to actively support their initiatives and keep Southwestern PA healthy, lively, and beautiful!
Join us starting at 6pm to interact with regional nonprofit organizations, learning about issues relating to litter, river health, air quality, and more. Sign up with these organizations as a volunteer to actively support their initiatives and keep Southwestern PA healthy, lively, and beautiful!
6-9 p.m. at the Pittsburgh Playhouse (350 Forbes Ave., 15222). $25, $10 for the afterparty. Register here.
Come enjoy great films, beer, wine, popcorn and help support the great work of the Pennsylvania Resources Council and Allegheny CleanWays.
Come enjoy great films, beer, wine, popcorn and help support the great work of the Pennsylvania Resources Council and Allegheny CleanWays.
Jun 28th (was June 1): YVFP educator workshop
This workshop is being combined with the one on June 26th at the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden.
Please join us there!
Young Voices for the Planet is a series of short films about activist kids, making a difference in their communities and in the world. Topics range from solar panels to sea level rise, plastic straws to planting trees, oil spills to environmental racism. YVFP welcomes educators of all backgrounds to learn how to empower the next generation of environmental stewards. Using these amazing films and the Civic Engagement and Democracy curriculum as resources, this inspiring workshop addresses climate change education through real-life youth success stories tackling local Pittsburgh environmental issues. We will show you how to bring our A.C.T.I.O.N Plan to life in your own classroom and community!9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden. Registration $15 (& $5 for Act 48 credits); please register online here. For any questions, please contact Susie Moffett (Fern Hollow) at susie.fhnc@gmail.com or (412)445-3715, or Kimberly Gutzler (YVPF) at (202) 476-9141. Facilitation, credits, and refreshments provided by Allegheny Land Trust.
=====================================================
Teaching Kids to Protect Their Future & Save the Planet!
Young people are concerned about many issues and want to make a difference. Teachers are asking what they can do to help empower students.
When young people DO speak out, their voices have power! At the COP24 climate talks, the voice most covered by the media was that of Swedish 15-year-old Greta Thunberg addressing the UN: “Our political leaders have failed us… We are facing an existential threat and there is no time to continue on this road of madness.”
In the next 6 months, Pittsburgh area institutions, partnering with Young Voices for the Planet and NY Times best-selling children’s book author and fillmmaker Lynne Cherry, will be hosting a series of workshops to help teachers help students to be heard. The workshops provide ACT 48 CREDITS while teaching educators how to:
- help students overcome doom and gloom and be energized by hope
- help students create an ACTION PLAN to address local Pittsburgh issues.
The workshops center around the true stories in the Young Voices for the Planet short documentaries featuring youth taking the lead, creating solutions, changing laws, changing minds and changing society. These stories reach hearts and inspire action.
Featured speakers include author and filmmaker Lynne Cherry; Jessica Kester, Allegheny Land Trust; and local youth speaking out for their environment.
Pittsburgh is the ideal place to launch this Civic Engagement and Democracy pilot workshop because the city’s sustainability goals serve as a guiding light for the rest of the country. The Allegheny Front, our own local environmental radio show, did a great segment on the first workshop.
The workshops are sponsored by The Heinz Endowments and the Garden Club of Allegheny County.
To learn more about workshops and registration, please click here. https://www.youngvoicesfortheplanet.com/workshops/
May 29: Paris to Pittsburgh screening
Join Lawrenceville Clean Air Now for a screening of Paris to Pittsburgh, a new National Geographic film produced by RadicalMedia in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies.
LCAN is excited to share this film with our community, shedding light on the effects of climate change and encouraging each other to fight for our future.
After the film (1 hr 20 min), there will be discussion about ways we can take action together locally to address climate change.
6-8 p.m. at Carnegie Library - Lawrenceville (279 Fisk St., 15201)
LCAN is excited to share this film with our community, shedding light on the effects of climate change and encouraging each other to fight for our future.
After the film (1 hr 20 min), there will be discussion about ways we can take action together locally to address climate change.
6-8 p.m. at Carnegie Library - Lawrenceville (279 Fisk St., 15201)
May 28: Pgh Food Action Plan meeting
Community Meeting for the Greater Pittsburgh Food Action Plan
Just Harvest is a leading member of the Pittsburgh Food Policy Council. The Council is developing a Greater Pittsburgh Food Action Plan that will create regional strategies to prioritize healthy, affordable, and sustainable food for all.
Please join us for the first in our community conversations about ensuring food equity! Come share your ideas, thoughts, and concerns about how food systems work in your community and ways to shape the future of our food system.
The six community sessions this summer are the best opportunity to provide input into the plan, so come make your voice heard!
5:30 – 8:00 p.m. at the Kingsley Center: 6435 Frankstown Ave in East Liberty
May 25: Sustainability Salon on Food
Sean Moundas, co-founder of the Pittsburgh Vegan Association, will take a look at the connections between environmental sustainability and veganism. Eleanor Marshall and colleagues will share Grow Ohio Valley's vision of regional food security and the social context of their work, including a new Public Market in Wheeling, WV. We'll have a repeat visit by local-food advocate and greenhouse impresario Stefan Vantchev, this time with a closer look at the climate, pollution, and financial costs to our communities of importing food. Organic farmer, wellness expert, and cookbook author Janet McKee of Sanaview Farms will talk about the healing power of foods, her transition from the high-powered corporate business world to organic farming, and how you can grow sprouts and microgreens for pennies year 'round.
Following the talks and discussion, and returning to our recurrent theme of plastics -- a major health and environmental issue as the petrochemical hub invades our region, and a persistent pollutant killing marine life all around the world -- we’ve initiated a monthly dinner-table conversation for those interested in how to avoid pervasive single-use plastics (SUPs), and how advocacy may be able to limit regional impacts. Quite a few local initiatives have been working on this issue (No Plastics Please, What's SUP, SUPless Mondays, No Straws 'n'At), and this is a great place to connect with them!
The next salon will very likely be on June 29th. Two notes regarding last month's speakers:
1. Stefan & Hank's nonprofit Greenhouses for Everyone has a crowdfunding campaign for a new greenhouse in Clairton.
2. Lynne Cherry will be back in town soon with the Young Voices for the Planet project, a series of short films about young environmental activists -- inspiring to kids and adults alike, and also demonstrating the power of youth in public discourse. Lynne is leading a series of educator workshops on civic engagement and democracy that will enable teachers and informal educators in our region to foster a new generation of activists using these amazing films. The workshop originally scheduled for June 1st is being folded into the June 26th event at the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden. As always, you can browse around MarensList for more events!
Salons run 3-10 p.m. at Maren's house in Squirrel Hill. Please don't arrive before 3 p.m. We generally start the program not long after 4pm, after folks have had a chance to meet, mingle, and tour around an interesting and productive urban permaculture site. After the talks and discussion (hopefully by around 7:30), we break for a potluck supper. Please email me (at maren dot cooke at gmail dot com) with salon in the Subject line to RSVP (yes or maybe), or click on the link in your 3 (if you're not already on my list, please email me with salon in the subject line to be added!).
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Please RSVP each time -- it helps greatly in several ways. Among other things, attendance varies widely, and we may need to limit attendance. So RSVP early if you can, to ensure your participation! The free virtual "tickets" on Eventbrite may run out (you don't need to print any tickets, by the way, just be on the list). Also, weather and such can be unpredictable and it's good to know who to contact if there's a change -- and I'll send directions and a trail map on Friday or Saturday. Be sure to include salon in the Subject line, as I receive a ridiculous amount of email every day. And if you're new, please let me know how you heard about the Salons!
Bring food and/or drink to share if you can (see below), along with musical instruments if you play. If you drive down our street, please park only on the uphill-facing side, and take care not to block driveways on either side of the street. Check back on MarensList (where you can find information on all sorts of environmental and social justice events) for updates. And if you aren't yet on my list, if you're interested in Sustainability Salons (and our occasional house concert, simply contact me and I'll put you on my email list.
As always, I'll be sending out directions and such, and any late-breaking info, to all the RSVP'd folks by the morning of the salon if not before (usually Friday night). So if you don't have it yet, please be patient! One of these days I'll streamline this process a bit, but for now it takes a while to to dot all my i's and cross all my t's. (All the extraneous requests for the address don't help; I have lots of other stuff I send out with it, but don't like to let them go unanswered so it adds hours to my prep time. If you RSVP properly (see above), you should get the info by the morning of the salon!)
For the uninitiated, a Sustainability Salon is an educational forum; it's a mini-conference; it's a venue for discussion and debate about important environmental issues; fit's a house party with an environmental theme. We usually have featured speakers on various aspects of a particular topic, interspersed with stimulating conversation, lively debate, delectable potluck food and drink, and music-making through the evening.
Past topics have included whether to preserve existing nuclear power plants, advanced nuclear technologies, passenger and freight trains, consumption, plastics, and pollution, air quality, solar power, youth activism, greening business, greenwashing, the petrochemical buildout in our region, climate/nature/people, fracking, health, & action, globalization, ecological ethics, community inclusion, air quality monitoring, informal gatherings that turn out to have lots of speakers, getting STEM into Congress, keeping Pittsburgh's water public, Shell's planned petrochemical plant, visualizing air quality, the City of Pittsburgh's sustainability initiatives, fossil energy infrastructure, getting money out of politics, community solar power and the Solarize Allegheny program, the Paris climate negotiations (before, during, and after), air quality (again, with news on the autism connection), reuse (of things and substances), neighborhood-scale food systems, other forms of green community revitalization, solar power, climate change, environmental art, environmental education (Part I & Part II), community mapping projects, environmental journalism, grassroots action, Marcellus shale development and community rights, green building, air quality, health care, more solar power, trees and park stewardship, alternative energy and climate policy, regional watershed issues, fantastic film screenings and discussions (often led by filmmakers) over the winter with films on Food Systems, Climate Adaptation and Mitigation, Plastic Paradise, Rachel Carson and the Power Of One Voice, Triple Divide on fracking, You've Been Trumped and A Dangerous Game, A Fierce Green Fire, Sustainability Pioneers, films on consumption, Living Downstream, Bidder 70, YERT, Gas Rush Stories, and food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, and more food (a recurrent theme; with California running out of water, we'd better gear up to produce a lot more of our own!).
Quite a few people have asked me what sorts of food to bring -- and my answer, as always, is whatever inspires you; I believe in the "luck" part of potlucks. Tasty noshings for the afternoon, hearty main dishes or scrumptious salads and sides for dinner, baked goods from biscuits and breads to brownies or baklava -- and/or beverages: wine, hard or sweet cider (the latter we can mull if you like), juice, tea, whatever. The more the merrier! Local fare is always particularly welcome, whether homemade or boughten. Dishes containing meat or dairy are fine, though if it isn't really obvious please make a note of it. We refill a bunch of growlers at East End and provide a big batch of mostly-homegrown pesto (cheesy and vegan), and other things as needed. More details will come after you RSVP (hint, hint!).
If you haven't been here before, you may enjoy checking out our roof garden and solar installation (and now apiary!) as well as the many other green and interesting things around our place.
And if you like to make music or listen to homemade music, don't forget the evening sing -- we typically run the gamut from Irish fiddle tunes to protest songs to the Beatles, and a fun time is had by all. Bring instruments if you play, and/or pick up one of ours. Conversations will continue through the evening, as well.
May 25: Donora Smog poetry book release party
Mill Spit by Alexandra Kemrer
Alexandra Kemrer’s poems have appeared in Voices from the Attic, Rune, and Pittsburgh City Paper’s Chapter and Verse. She is a member of the Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops under the direction of Jan Beatty at Carlow University. Her debut chapbook, Mill Spit, is based on her experience growing up in a small town on the Monongahela River when air pollution from the steel and zinc mills was severe. She lives and writes in Pittsburgh, PA.
Join Alexandra for a release party, 6-8 p.m. at Commonplace Coffee Shop, 6736 Reynolds St. in Point Breeze (formerly Make Your Mark).
Alexandra Kemrer’s Mill Spit takes us back in time to a mill kid’s childhood in a small Pennsylvania steel town where the mill itself is a character hulking in the background, as real and discontent as the adults caught in its soot. Kemrer’s poems remind us that beauty and mystery are everywhere waiting to be discovered–in spite of the difficulties and grit, and sometimes in the difficulties and grit.
–Nancy Krygowski, author of Velocity (University of Pittsburgh Press)
The impact of bad air quality on children and communities is often invisible, easily ignored, and an aspect of history frequently forgotten. Kemrer’s collection of intimate poems, Mill Spit, succeeds gently, yet powerfully, in highlighting the invisible threat of pollution and its profound effect on generations. The poems sound a cautionary note in the present, as our decisions affect the future.
–Sara Longo, Managing Director of Airviz Inc., maker of the Speck air quality sensor, daughter company of the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute.
Alexandra Kemrer’s Mill Spit invites us to see the mill town of Donora, PA, from the perspective of a child asking questions no adult will answer. With sonic power and wild imagination, Kemrer explores working-class identity, the way our landscape shapes us and is shaped by us, and the pressures of family and history. Mill Spit asks us to examine how we relate to industry and our environment, and powerfully confronts the human cost of profit. These poems strive for beauty and joy amidst soot and grit—they sing out amidst forces that would silence them. Kemrer is a poet we all need now.
–Emily Mohn-Slate, author of Feed (Seven Kitchens Press)
In Mill Spit Alexandra Kemrer opens a furnace of memories of a steel mill town, of a neighborhood built on a hill too steep for cars where looking down at your feet is the safest way to walk. In unsparing language she shows the amputations suffered in a place where even the light is rusted — If I catch you dancing, / I’ll break your legs; / you’re a mill kid, / my father said. And yet there is hope in pennies found and hidden and found, and beauty to be ransomed, even in the harsh fathers themselves—daisy chain of fathers’ hands / calloused pads grasp hot steel. These poems hold together the English sparrow and white-hot steel. They are, in just the way Keats taught us, beautiful and true.
– Diane Gilliam
https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/mill-spit-by-alexandra-kemrer/ #poetry #chapbook
Mar 23: Fracking impacts
WHO PAYS? Health & Economic Impacts of Fracking in PA
This forum on the impacts of fracking in PA will examine what science and analysis tell us about the health effects and economic costs of fracking, who is paying now, and what the future price is apt to be.
Actions to address the issues will also be explored.
6:30-8:30 in the Convocation Center, North Wing at California University of Pennsylvania.
Free and open to the public. Free parking. Sponsored by the Environmental Health Project, Mountain Watershed Association, Center for Coalfield Justice, and Delaware Riverkeeper Network.
Actions to address the issues will also be explored.
6:30-8:30 in the Convocation Center, North Wing at California University of Pennsylvania.
Free and open to the public. Free parking. Sponsored by the Environmental Health Project, Mountain Watershed Association, Center for Coalfield Justice, and Delaware Riverkeeper Network.
May 22: Where to Turn Resource & Job Fair
At the 16th Where to Turn Resource Fair and Job Fair, attendees will be able to connect with social service, health care, food, and education resources in an Exhibit Fair and speaker classrooms. Check out the vendor list & speaker schedule and register today! Registration is FREE - click here. Social Work and ACT 48 Continuing Education Credits will be offered at this event.
9:00 a.m. to noon at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
The Where to Turn Job Fair and Networking Happy Hour is 3:30 pm - 6:30 pm the same day! All attendees will receive one complimentary alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage. Registration for job seekers is FREE and there will be on-site FREE child care for the Job Fair. Employers attending the Job Fair include: Allegheny Family Network, American HealthCare Group, Community Living and Support Services (CLASS), Comfort Keepers, DON Services, Farm to Table Western PA, Gateway Health Plan, Goodwill of Southwestern PA, Guardian Elder Care and Partners for Quality, Inc.
9:00 a.m. to noon at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
The Where to Turn Job Fair and Networking Happy Hour is 3:30 pm - 6:30 pm the same day! All attendees will receive one complimentary alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage. Registration for job seekers is FREE and there will be on-site FREE child care for the Job Fair. Employers attending the Job Fair include: Allegheny Family Network, American HealthCare Group, Community Living and Support Services (CLASS), Comfort Keepers, DON Services, Farm to Table Western PA, Gateway Health Plan, Goodwill of Southwestern PA, Guardian Elder Care and Partners for Quality, Inc.
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