Bill James-Abra:
When you look at 2023 in one go, we did a lot!
In January we wrapped up our door-to-door Greenbelt Promise canvassing in Mitchell, MPP Rae’s hometown, distributing 1200 flyers. 1200!
Our newsletter has gone out twice a month all year and subscribers are up 20%. We raised more than 3000$ over the year- mostly to support our Earth Day Street Party. Despite the last minute pivot indoors to Factory 163, it was a super success.
We’ve upped our game by advocating at City Hall with delegations to Council and staffing a table at the Perth Municipalities Day. We also had a table at the Huron Waves Gaia event and the Car-free event downtown. Post-pandemic mixers were revived with enthusiasm, celebrating the SDSS Eco club in June and introducing Ryan Erb, executive Director of the United Way and the newly unveiled United Housing, in the fall. We collaborated with other grassroots or community organizations, such as the Perth Sustainability Hub, the SDSS ecoclub, Future Ground Network and Wise Communities to hold Stratford’s End Fossil Fuel March. Between our street party and our rebooted mixers, we probably had more than 250 people “through our doors.”
And we did all that (and more) with a lot of goodwill and laughter. I think that counts as a good year, a job well done, and we can all give ourselves a pat on the back!
