Atlanta Climate Week: BSI Showed Up and Showed OUT!!!
The first-ever Atlanta Climate Week was an AMAZING WEEK for All Things Black AND Green!!!
We spent the week with community-based organizations, local leaders and longtime friends of the work. We also met plenty of new faces. Our conversations reached from Fulton County to DeKalb County and all the way to Ghana, West Africa. We left with stronger relationships, new opportunities and a lot of shared wisdom to carry forward.
Sooooo,Here’s how the week went...
On October 12, our Executive Director, Raina Turner-Greenlea, joined Dr. Reginald Parker and Taffany Hyatt as a panelist. She also received the Freedom Award for Service in Sustainability.
“Deepest gratitude to Green Power Ventures and Dr. Reginald Parker for my Freedom Award for Service in Sustainability,” Raina shared. “Receiving flowers for my work with Black Sustainability, Inc. and our team means so much.”
We all know how rarely this kind of work gets celebrated out loud. Seeing it honored in front of the community meant a lot to us.
That same day, DeKalb County marked the International Day of Climate Action with a proclamation at the Board of Commissioners meeting. Raina was there with our teammate Anaya Martin, known to many as Anaya the EcoArtist. We’re deeply thankful to Commissioner Ted Terry’s office for recognizing our work and the work of so many others in the climate and environmental sector.
Another proud moment came that week. Anaya, a brilliant local filmmaker, was selected as one of the featured climate films at DeKalb’s upcoming climate film festival. Congratulations, Anaya! We’re so proud of you.
We also joined the Climate Capital. Community Power. conversation alongside Freedmen Green Bank & Trust and the Smart Cities Alliance. The room was full of people asking the questions that matter: where climate money goes, who it reaches, and how communities can build real power through it.
Our impact during Climate Week reached well past Atlanta. It connected to the work of BSI’s Imara Taylor, who has been building a trade pathway at AGRECO NUS for non-GMO, organically grown West African indigenous crops. Climate action and food sovereignty belong together, and Imara’s work shows it.
If you’re part of the Black and Green community, we want to find you. That includes organizations, leaders and experts. If you haven’t yet, drop your pin on our map It gives us, and others around the globe, a real way to find and collaborate with like minds!!!
None of this happens alone. Big ups to our team and our community of supporters. You made our participation in Atlanta Climate Week possible and kept our other initiatives going strong at the same time: Ariel Doty, Qualon Bobbitt, Alexis Blomqvist, Jordan Roberts, Kelyce B. Allen, Charles Greenlea, Dr. Erica L. Holloman-Hill, Cosco Eric Jones, Yeamah E. Brewer, James Pippim and LaTresse Snead.
Thank you also to the City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Sustainability & Resilience: Chandra Farley, Beth Graham, j. olu baiyewu, Michael Hawthorne Jr. and the entire staff. You pulled together an amazing inaugural week!!!
Atlanta Climate Week may be over, but the work keeps going. We’ll see you in the next room, at the next table and on the map! ;)
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