The Rosa Jackson Rec Center, where the climate resiliency event will be held, is located at 1211 Maynard St. Photo courtesy of Margaret Walker.
Mothers & Others For Clean Air was included in this article about resiliency workshops that we are participating in. The article was written by reporter Margaret Walker and published in the Macon Telegraph. Read the original article in the Telegraph here.
If you’re in the Macon area and would like to attend this FREE resiliency workshop, register here!
This Saturday, a statewide coalition of Atlanta-based environmental groups are hitting the road and coming to Macon. The GOST Network, which stands for Georgians Organized to Survive and Thrive, is hosting resiliency workshops across the state, and its first stop is in Macon at the Rosa Jackson Rec Center at 1211 Maynard St. from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. “We’re hosting these events to ask people, ‘what could be done, right now, to strengthen your community as summers get hotter, storms get bigger, and the price of electricity gets higher?’” said Amina Robinson, who helped organize the event with Georgia Conservation Voters Education Fund. “(We want) to ask the question, listen to their answers and to connect as many as possible to resources that might help.”
The open-house-style resource fair will feature stations on utility bill assistance, support for new mothers and help applying for energy efficiency rebates through the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority. “‘Resilience’ – in the context of climate change — refers to all of the ways in which communities can lessen the negative impacts and strengthen themselves for the long haul,” Robinson said in an email. “We believe that focusing on resilience fills a practical need and brings climate change out of the theoretical future and into the present.”
Robinson said examples of resiliency planning would include planting trees in flood-prone neighborhoods to help absorb stormwater, installing solar panels on churches to provide backup power for essential needs during outages and investing in stormwater infrastructure and local food systems to ensure access to food and resources even if highways are blocked. There also will be bouncy houses at the event, free food from Smash Tacos and a raffle for home air purifiers and opportunities for residents to share their stories and concerns about the community, according to Robinson. It was important for these groups to get out of the Metro Atlanta area because “some of the most exciting community efforts in Georgia are outside of Metro Atlanta,” Robinson said. “For instance, just this week, over 900 people came out to their County Commission meeting in Monroe County to stop the construction of a data center,” Robinson said. “That’s why we’re excited to grow our relationships all over.” And they’re coming to Macon first because of its central location and presence of environmental stewards.
“Macon made a lot of sense as our first stop,” Robinson said. “It’s a beautiful city and home to many people dedicated to protecting our environment. On top of that, it’s centrally located, so everyone has to travel, but nobody has to go too far.” Participating partners include Black Voters Matter, GA Bright Solar for All, Peach Concerned Citizens, West Atlanta Watershed Alliance, Georgia Conservation Voters Education Fund, Mothers and Others for Clean Air, Partnership for Southern Equity, Atlanta Jobs with Justice, and Georgia Coalition for Environmental Policy and Protection. The event is in partnership with, and paid for by, RnR Tire Express, who will be hosting a separate event at the same location and time. “They’ve been awesome community partners, and we’re proud to join this event as co-sponsors with them,” Robinson said. “It’s important too because sometimes people might not be that interested in a “climate resilience workshop” as a weekend event, even if the information itself is actually interesting to them, so these kinds of partnerships are ideal.”
