one earth local

Austin Eats

One Earth is committed to supporting the mission of this community-based, food equity group in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago's West Side. Austin Eats is a 22-member collaborative that is focused on creating a more resilient community, especially a more resilient food system, through action, learning, justice, and equity and inclusion.

Austin’s 90,000+ residents currently only have two full grocery stores available for a community that is Chicago’s largest community area in size. And during the COVID19 pandemic, Austin’s bare-bones emergency food infrastructure was exposed. Austin Eats helps the community realize its desire to revitalize the image and spirit of Austin by creating environments that foster health and wellness and promote healthier food choices across Austin.

Like other One Earth Local programs, Austin Eats is working to build a replicable model to be used for other communities. One Earth supports Austin Eats by serving as an active member of the coalition's Food Education team, and leading event-based food education initiatives using our unique awareness-to-action model around the arts for social change.

Climate Ready Community Outreach to Oak Park (COOP)

Climate Ready Community Outreach to Oak Park (COOP)  is an outreach and education pilot project around the Village of Oak Park’s Climate Ready Oak Park sustainability plan (approved in August 2022), bringing 20 diverse community groups together to promote the plan to Oak Park’s 55,000 residents. One Earth Local gathered COOP organizations together in October 2022 and pushes out monthly communications tied to the Climate Ready Oak Park plan. COOP is a place where community activists can collaborate and communicate on projects such as a community-wide Earth Month celebration in April 2023. COOP members post their events on One Earth's calendar and have a google group, as well as monthly meetings.

If you would like your Oak Park community based organization to be a part of COOP, please contact: 
laurie@oneearthcollective.org

Neighborhood Tours

One Earth supports biking and walking tours that reveal the vibrancy, art and beauty of various Chicago neighborhoods, mainly on the city's West and South Sides. These tours, run by valued partners, Equiticity, De Colores + Cultura, Black Brown + Breathing, Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center and Organic Oneness, Chicago Park District, EventNoir, REI, and others, help build resilient, socially-cohesive, safe, sustainable communities where residents feel safety in and ownership toward their neighborhoods and accompanying outdoor spaces.

These initiatives use a strong equity lens, since these particular events are hosted in communities rich with culture, tradition, and in some cases also green spaces or parks -- but that have historically lacked investment and attention from businesses and government.

The issue of "space equity" -- who has the right to be where, and who gets to say so (think birder Christian Cooper in Central Park) that has recently entered the broader public's eye -- has been an ongoing issue for residents of these communities. There is a great need for people to be given the freedom, space, mental health benefit and community benefit of being able to simply, safely experience the benefits of nature right outside people's front doors. Claiming space in nature in our own communities, and all the benefits that go with that, are an act of resistance in today's world that tries hard to separate and isolate us, and tells certain groups of people that it's not really "for them."