By Joan Qazi, Sustainable Wenatchee board member
It’s the new year, a time for reflecting on what’s done and making commitments for what you want to do or who you want to be going forward. For us at Sustainable Wenatchee, it’s the right time to offer you a chance to envision what a sustainable world would look like and how we could create it together. So, we are hosting our next community discussion series called Choices for Sustainable Living starting on Tuesday, January 11th at 7pm and we are inviting you to join in. We have hosted two of these discussion groups successfully by Zoom in the past couple years and participants tell us they left feeling empowered to live more sustainably or with a greater understanding of why sustainability is important.
The Choices for Sustainable Living discussion series promises to be even more compelling with carefully selected, short articles chosen for their diversity of perspectives and topics written by renown thinkers and organizations working in the field of sustainability. Bi-weekly discussion topics range from ecological principles to food, water, transportation, consumption, community, and end with visions of sustainability. Ecochallenge.org is the series creator and they prioritize content that will help us to create a supportive community while reflecting on our values and assumptions so we can move to action. They have added the option this year to participate in an online ‘ecochallenge’ designed to enhance our discussions, by connecting us with resources and opportunities for actions that support our sustainable intentions.
The proliferation of the term ‘sustainable’ in marketing and PR has both diluted its meaning and narrowed its scope to being about the environment alone. Sustainability is so much more and can provide a hopeful approach for envisioning our future. If you are unsure what sustainability truly means, then this is the discussion group for you. As your discussion host, I commit to keeping our discussions engaging and valuable. I hope my daytime job as Wenatchee Valley College’s Sustainability Coordinator and Geography instructor will help me be an informed and reliable guide for our explorations of these critical topics.
So, as you reflect on the past year and perhaps want inspiration for the new one, consider a resolution that goes beyond the latest diet fad or exercise contest, register for our Choices for Sustainable Living discussion group instead. Join us to learn, share, and collaborate for finding hope in 2022!
