💌A Love Letter To Our Local Groups & Affiliates🙏
As we look ahead to 2025, we first want to take a moment to acknowledge all of the hard work you’ve put in and the resilience you’ve shown. Your commitment to protecting our environment, the health of your communities and those where the plastic industry is located, has been nothing short of incredible. We could not be more grateful for the efforts you've made to push this anti-plastics movement forward.🙏
As we look toward the start of a new year, where our work to reduce plastics and our pursuit of environmental justice will be more difficult, we are here to hold space for your feelings and questions related to your work on the ground as advocates, and want to remind you that you can reach out anytime to find a time to meet one-on-one.
We also recommend that you meet with your group members to do the same. There are many guided practices you can find online and we encourage you to find one that is a good fit for you and your fellow advocates. To get you started, here is a good one from The All We Can Save project, co-founded by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Dr. Katharine Wilkinson. You also might find useful on-going opening questions or practices for your regular meetings within their circle session guides.
It is also important to authentically move together. Reach out to surrounding climate or social justice organizations. Co-hosting an event together is a great way to start supporting each other’s work. We know that large-scale progress on plastic pollution, climate change, and environmental justice will not come quickly or easily. But we also know that real change is happening in local communities and that the work is based on relationships. In the face of a less encumbered Big Oil/ Big Plastics industry, this is the level at which we can move forward.The power of our movement lies in the strength of our grassroots organizing and our connection to each other. Please continue, or start to, make space for that connection. We will climb the ladder slowly but intentionally. Each petition signed, every meeting with a local official, every screening and rally—it all matters.
As we move into 2025, we will expand and strengthen our local and collaborative strategy. We’ll rely on each other through challenges and celebrate our victories when we have them.
We’re honored to be in this fight with you, and we know that by deepening our connections and leaning into our grassroots network, we will make the change we seek.
Onward,
Nyah, Alexis, and Christina
