I have always loved being outdoors. As a young child, I was a tree hugger. The love of nature has been in my life since the beginning. Being out in nature brings me peace and contentment. Monterey, California is one of my favorite places on earth. I enjoyed tidepooling, watching dolphins, and whales off of the coast. It saddens me that areas of Big Sur are scorched from wildfires, and glaciers no longer exist where they once stood tall.
My personal experience as a Community Coordinator was an impactful and positive experience in my life. In the beginning of the Climate Action Plan project, coordinators were trained on listening skills and true genuine appreciation for the shared stories from Douglas County residents. After meeting the other community coordinators during two training sessions, the next step was buddy calls with other coordinators to share our own stories.
During the entire project, community coordinators received an enormous amount of support. We were provided with resources, and I would often get lost in the research that I was completing in order to be knowledgeable about climate change. The information that I found was alarming, and it created a passion inside of me that urged me to want to continue to bring awareness to the connections of climate change and human health, especially mental health.
I was excited to start my community outreach after the training was completed. I started off by reaching out to anyone in the community that might want to share their story with me. Sadly, it yielded no results. No one was interested in speaking to me about it. I had to switch gears and I reached out to every community center where home- and food-vulnerable families might be. After attempts at making connections, Just Food and the Ballard Center gladly offered their sites to me to conduct outreach. They were very supportive of the cause and the mission of the Climate Action Plan. In the beginning, I had two sessions arranged for the Ballard Center, and four planned at Just Food. After only one session at both centers, I had heard enough to be able to collect data on connections between stories.
I was struck down by climate grief. Which is a real thing. It is heartbreaking and concerning to see where the world is going. I experienced climate grief for approximately one week. In the end, I finally picked myself up and decided to march forward. There is no greater way to protect your children than to protect the planet where they will grow. In the end, how I dealt with climate grief was to immerse myself in solutions instead of doom and gloom.
During my outreach, I heard 35 stories from Community members. There were common themes amongst the stories. My role as a community coordinator is to make sure their stories are heard and to support the mission of the Climate Action Plan.
