Updates

Some glimpses...

In 2025 we are supporting the  Elkhart climate resolution process

• Meeting with youth leaders and key stakeholders

• EFERT Board President spoke at the Elkhart City Council in support of the resolution on April 21, 2025

• Assisting in editing and translating the Climate Resolution press releases

• Translating the Climate Resolution into Spanish (accessible here in both English and Spanish)

• Partnering with the Elkhart Parks Department on a joint grant promoting equitable environmental resilience
  
  

In 2024 we are building organizational infrastructure

• meeting likeminded groups in Elkhart and across the Great Lakes watershed

• leading a workshop on Anticolonial Arrivancy at the Environmental Changemakers conference for People of the Global Majority

• doing deep internal work so that when we fully launch we can do so with strength, clear purpose, and direction
  
  

In 2023 we put some feelers out

• participated in the Elkhart city design charrette to address the devastating ongoing impacts of urban renewal

• led a Justice Outside delegation to 9 cities across the Midwest, involving over 130 people in discussing climate resilience, power-building, and triple bottom line sustainability

• inspired the start of a backyard garden nearby to the EFERT building and have provided resources to it alongside Church Community Service

• wrote a climate memo to Elkhart, Indiana Mayor Rod Roberson

• participated in the Technical Assistance for Brownfield's committee for the City of Elkhart 

• joined and contributed to the Anthropocene Alliance's Higher Ground listserve, the largest listserv of frontline organizations facing the impacts of climate change in their home areas
  
  

In late 2022 we incorporated

• built a representative board (Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and white folks working together for realizing a just transition)

• sought and obtained seed funding

• achieved 501c3 status