Make Community Resilience a Reality

[Aaron Lehmer]

Help Bay Localize Build a Resilient Bay Area for All Join Our Monthly Member Program or Make a One-Time Contribution Today!   Dear friends, We all know the threats to our world are growing. Our air, land, and water all face mounting pollution and stress.  Food and energy costs continue to rise along with job losses, foreclosures, and cuts in social services. And climate change is already intensifying hurricanes, floods, and sea level rise, displacing millions of us from the places we call home. It will take smart ideas, political power, and a strong movement to turn things around. At Bay Localize, we’re rising to the challenge.  Together with supporters like you, we're building vibrant, resilient communities that meet human needs while slashing oil use and protecting our planet. Support our efforts today! By revitalizing our communities, we can bounce back from current crises, and build on our strengths to create places where we all can thrive in balance with our local environments. Over the years, Bay Localize has become a force to be reckoned with at City Hall, and a central hub in the movement for local resilience. Together with our allies, we are building the vision, the networks, the people power, and the political clout to transform our region. Yet as our movement has grown, so has the backlash from the fossil-fuel industries. That’s why we need your help now more than ever.  When PG&E poured $47 million into Prop 16 in an attempt to kill Community Choice Energy, Bay Localize played a major role in bringing together the coalition that defeated it. The press hailed it as a historic victory. Our people power literally changed the political equation in California: money is no longer guaranteed to win elections. With that victory under our belt, Bay Localize has joined the statewide coalition, Communities United Against the Dirty Energy Prop (Prop 23). Other accomplishments include: Launching the Community Resilience Toolkit, which has been downloaded by over 600 community leaders in 44 states and 21 countries. Convincing Oakland to set the strongest climate action goals of any US industrial city, and inspiring San Jose to increase its goals as well. Hosting the two-day “Clean Power, Healthy Communities” conference where 175 clean energy advocates organized for local financing, policies, and action plans to boost local renewable power. Co-hosting a major teach-in about the BP spill and how to respond with community solutions. Organizing numerous Community Resilience Workshops and events with partners. Launching our Green Your Hood program, bringing diverse communities together to share skills and resources, while building urban farms, rooftop gardens, and other resilience projects. To transform our vision into reality, we need your support. We invite you to invest whatever you can to help create vibrant, green neighborhoods where all of us can live to the fullest. Help us make this vision a reality. Join Bay Localize, and support our growing wealth of community building tools and programs (see below). This fall we’re offering a special $25 membership, for which you’ll also receive a year’s subscription to the award-winning Earth Island Journal.* Or, consider a membership of $50, $100, $250, $500 or more. Monthly donation plans are also available — a $60 contribution only means $5 per month — an affordable option! Together, we can build a truly resilient Bay Area! Thank you for your commitment and support, — Aaron, Dave, Kirsten, Linda, Nile, Rosa, and the Bay Localize team * Bay Localize is proud to be a project of Earth Island Institute. If you prefer to pay by check, please make it out to Earth Island Institute/Bay Localize, and mail it to: Bay Localize, 436 14th Street, Suite 1216, Oakland, CA 94612 OUR PROGRAMS provide new vision, infrastructure, and policies to transform our region: Our Bay Area 2020 program offers a clear-eyed view of the key challenges we face as a region and strategies to address them. In response to rising energy costs and climate instability, we develop tools, engage changemakers, and implement policies to build a more resilient Bay Area. We also co-host workshops based on our Community Resilience Toolkit, designed to assist neighborhoods and organizations in building up their own assets to create local resilience. We’re also forming a Local Resilience Network of leaders around the Bay to better support one another, share best practices, and advance a regional agenda. Our Green Your Hood program demonstrates the potential for urban areas to become more self-reliant in meeting basic needs of food, water, and energy. Weproduce tools, develop demonstration projects, and support policy changes to help cities meet all residents’ economic human rights sustainably and locally. Our Local Clean Energy Alliance is a growing coalition of nonprofits, businesses, and community groups working to reduce energy consumption, transition to renewable power, and create thousands of clean energy jobs throughout the Bay Area. We focus on energy reduction and climate strategies that jump-start green economic development and benefit all Bay Area communities.

Contact Us:   Bay Localize   436 14th Street, Suite 1216   Oakland, CA 94612 USA   Tel: (510) 834-0420   Web: http://www.baylocalize.org   Support our efforts! Go to: http://earthisland.org/bayLocalize/donate

Aaron Lehmer
Network Development Director, Bay Localize
"Building Equitable and Resilient Communities"
436 14th Street, Suite 1216
Oakland, CA  94612
(510) 834-0420 [Office]
(415) 613-4781 [Cell]
aa...@baylocalize.org
http://www.baylocalize.org



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