Save the Date - Earth Day 2020 - Connection, Solidarity & Action!
Karim Beers, Get Your GreenBack Tompkins
Now’s the Time for Connection, Solidarity, & Action!
Let’s come together to celebrate Earth Day--
Our Mother’s Birthday!
Art, dance, and song,
In solidarity, let’ s come along
Learn a thing or two
About what our neighbors are up to
What can I do? How can I help?
This all will be covered.
And if you’ve wondered
How we’re going to do this in corona-time
Well, we’ll do it all online!
Earth Day 2020 - Wednesday, April 22nd, 2pm - Live Streaming (details TBD)
More details to come, including lists of presenters and artists, how to connect, and schedules. This is an emerging event. Help us make it successful!
Looking forward to connecting,
The Organizing team
Tammy Butler, Southside Community Center
Rebecca Evans, Ithaca College/Sunrise Ithaca
Kirby Edmonds, Building Bridges Initiative/Dorothy Cotton Institute
Karim Beers, Get Your GreenBack Tompkins
Earth Day 2020 - Seeking Presenters & Performers to Educate, Engage, Entertain, and Inspire Action!
With the theme of “Connection, Solidarity, & Action”, we are organizing an online Earth Day celebration on Wednesday, April 22nd, beginning at 2pm.
We are inviting presenters and performers (musicians, comedians, story-tellers, etc.) to partake in this opportunity to deepen our connection with others, share information on all the activities going on, reinforce the feelings and actions of solidarity that have arisen from the COVID-19 response, and make connections to others who might help. We ask all interested parties to confirm your interest asap and no later than Monday, 4/13.
Non-profit organizations and community performers are offered 3-5 minutes to present during the event, either doing it live, or by providing a pre-recorded video. We encourage all presentations to:
Be family-friendly
Be relevant to people with limited income
Integrate equity and environment
Be fun!
For example, instead of speaking with a set of slides, we encourage everyone to use the arts, show us something hands-on we can do while at home, and make the connection between our work and our community’s goals towards a more equitable and environmentally sustainable local economy.
While we are limiting the presentations to 3-5 minutes to allow for wide and diverse participation, artists, and those leading hands-on activities--including dancing or yoga--can request longer time slots.
The program is currently under development, but so far we envision having between 20-50 presentations, facilitated by a pair of hosts, with a mix of presentations by local non-profits interspersed with other artistic and move-your-body segments. We have already heard from 10 non-profits who are interested in participating, and anticipate a substantial response to our formal invitation. The event could last two to five hours, depending on the number of participants. We envision having the presenters on a Zoom call, taking turns in the limelight, and streaming the whole event via some platform (likely Facebook Live). Attendees will likely be able to participate in a Live chat platform, but will otherwise not be able to interact with the presenters. We plan on recording the event and making the recording available afterwards, and are hoping to have each presentation available separately, as well as the whole, large recording. We anticipate having a schedule available for people to tune in to the segments they are most interested in.
These are our current thoughts. Feel free to suggest others! You may have better ideas! (Please be mindful that we just have two short weeks to prepare this, and all of us organizers have other full-time responsibilities aside from this event.)
Expectations of Presenters
We expect all presenters to provide information that is useful and relevant to a cross-section of our Tompkins County community and surrounding areas, and especially so for people with limited income. As noted above, we ask all presenters to try to include elements that are family-friendly and fun, and to integrate equity and environmental sustainability into their presentation. For ideas of the connection between these two principles, we are including a copy of a document, “Energy & Equity Go Hand in Hand”, written by a group of local community members a few years ago.
All presenters should send in advance an outline of their presentation, and be prepared to participate in a dry-run of the technology beforehand.
All presenters will be considered co-sponsors of the event and, if technically possible, made co-hosts of the event page (e.g. of a Facebook Event page). We will count on all of us helping spread the word about the event to make it hugely successful.
Interested?
Please complete this short form to indicate your interest as soon as possible and no later than Monday, 3/14.
Our Next Steps
Once we have a better sense of the participants, we will start putting together a program. We are working on developing a logo, and setting up the platform for hosting the live event. We will send regular updates to presenters and interested parties, and try to figure out the myriad logistical questions that emerge when trying to organize such a large event! (At least we don’t have to provide food or transportation!)
Questions?
Write any member of the Organizing Team:
Tammy Butler, Southside Community Center
Rebecca Evans, Ithaca College/Sunrise Ithaca
Kirby Edmonds, Building Bridges Initiative/Dorothy Cotton Institute
Karim Beers, Get Your GreenBack Tompkins
Thank You!
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