The Massachusetts Library System is excited to share this unique opportunity for our members to partner with Communities Responding to Extreme Weather on virtual programming for Climate Prep Week. Here’s the official invitation from Craig Altemose, CREW’s Executive Director.
Communities Responding to Extreme Weather (CREW) would like to invite you to participate in our annual Climate Prep Week!
What is Climate Prep Week?
Climate Prep week is a series of events hosted by various organizations and establishments dedicated to learning, service, and actions that better prepare our communities for extreme weather events. By coming together to host events, we provide the resources and space to think about the ways that climate change disadvantages some communities more than others.
This Year – We’re Virtual!
Last year, we were excited to count over 134+ events as part of Climate Prep Week. Due to the Covid-19 public health crisis, we have decided to transition Climate Prep Week to a virtual setting to ensure the safety of our community members. We realize that many of us are still getting adjusted to this new normal so, in order to ease the workload, CREW will be hosting some centralized virtual events that any organization can co-opt and participate in.
And Focusing on Racial Justice
In light of the recent critical conversations around racial justice in society, we will be focusing several of our central events around the intersections of climate resilience and racial justice and encourage Climate Prep Week hosts to consider doing the same.
Here are some of the centralized virtual events we have planned so far:
- A virtual discussion with acclaimed writer Eric Klinenberg with librarians and community members. Eric Klinenberg is well known for his novel Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago and his more recent book Palaces for the People.
- An overview of a Boston mapping project with the Conservation Law Foundation and the city of Boston. This event will explore the community assets that exist within the city of Boston and how they can be leveraged to create a more climate-resilient future, with a particular focus on how we can serve communities of color and other marginalized neighborhoods.
- A panel discussion led by Enet Mukurazita with women farmers in Zimbabwe on their experiences dealing with climate impacts
- A workshop and panel on Libraries as Makerspaces. This panel discussion will look at reframing our waste culture into one of innovation. We will have author Elizabeth Knight talking about her book, Repair Revolution, which focuses on how to repair and reuse products and materials. We will also have a discussion on how we can combat our throwaway, disposable culture as community members and civic institutions.
- A panel discussion on the intersection of racial justice and emergency response.
How you can participate:
- Join us as a Partner, and help advertise the centrally organized events
- This would include advertising the events to your membership over email and social media.
- Partners will be recognized on our website and at the start of our events
- To sign up as a partner, please fill out this form.
- Join us as Host and host your own event with and for your community!
- We will advertise your events on our central website, and are happy to support you with suggestions for content or speakers if that is helpful.
- In addition to hosting your own event, hosts can participate in promoting and sharing the centrally organized events.
- To sign up to host an event, please fill out this form.
We hope that you can join us in celebrating Climate Prep Week 2020. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact CREW Program Fellow Gideon Nachman at gideon@climatecrew.org or CREW Program Manager Vernon K. Walker at vernon@climatecrew.org. We would be happy to schedule a call with you to answer any questions or help you brainstorm options.
Please let us know if you would like to host your own event or partner with us to help advertise our central events! We are looking forward to “seeing” you the week of September 24-30!
Sincerely,
Craig Altemose, Executive Director
Communities Responding to Extreme Weather
