An essential read for Black History Month: Blavity explores the Civil Rights history of Black literacy and librarianship with UNC librarian and documentary producer Rodney Freeman. Stay tuned for Rodney's upcoming documentary, "Are You a Librarian? The Untold Story of Black Librarians," which will be released in Philadelphia this June.
Read MoreIn February, Bronzeville Winery, one of Chicago's most popular restaurants, and Polished Pebbles Girls Mentoring Program hosted a "Mommy & Me Etiquette Lunch" to help prepare young girls for professional success. On FOX32 Chicago, etiquette coach Rica Cuff shared some of the skills the girls would learn.
Read MoreOn WVON/The Talk of Chicago, former IL State Rep. Ken Dunkin spoke with librarian and documentary producer Rodney Freeman about why we should celebrate Black librarianship in America. Check out the fun and important Black History Month interview here.
Read MoreOn Craig Melvin's first day as co-anchor of NBC's TODAY, he aired a story about NAFSI 1916, the first Black-owned restaurant to open in what used to be a whites-only country club.
Read MoreOn MLK Day, UNC Librarian Rodney Freeman writes that the current rise in book bans and threats against librarians is in direct conflict with our society’s commitment to honoring the life and legacy of MLK and other Civil Rights leaders.
Read MoreTo kick off the New Year, Dion’s Chicago Dream Founder Dion Dawson publishedan op-ed in Newsweek about why Food is Medicine should be a national priority. Food is Medicine programs are a proven way to provide food security, improve health outcomes, and reduce healthcare costs for our country’s most vulnerable populations. Congresswoman Robin Kelly (D-IL) is a key leader on this issue. In November, she introduced the FOOD as Health Act, which would direct $20 million in grants to Food is Medicine programs. In addition to endorsing this legislation, Dion recently joined the advisory council of the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University.
Read MoreWhat do we do now to effectively address the climate crisis? In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, The Solutions Project’s Mark Ruffalo, aka The Hulk, and Gloria Walton, an award-winning climate leader, urge their fellow philanthropists to recognize the need to invest in community-led climate solutions. This is no longer just a theory. It’s the proven reality reflected in new data and powerful examples of equitable, grassroots-powered climate action across the country.
Read MoreIMPEL is a woman-led, DOE-funded tech-to-market program accelerating equitable access to next-generation building decarbonization technologies for schools, homes, and commercial buildings. For Earth Day, Forbes published an exclusive on the program's remarkable success over the past five years. IMPEL innovators – over half of whom identify as women, non-binary, and/or people have color – have raised $90 million in funding, created 180 jobs, and won 167 awards, grants, and prizes.
For National Librarian Day (April 16), Rodney Freeman, librarian and producer of the documentary Are You a Librarian?, penned a Newsweek essay celebrating librarians as heroes. He highlights librarians’ long history of promoting a healthy democracy and standing up for access to information, from Black librarians fighting to end the segregation of libraries during the Jim Crow era, to present-day librarians pushing back against censorship and book bans.
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Our Southern forests are a national treasure. On President’s Day weekend, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran an op-ed by Treva Gear, PhD, founder of Concerned Citizens of Cook County, calling on Pres. Biden to address a blank spot in his environmental justice agenda: protecting Southern forests and communities from the dangerous and destructive wood pellet industry.
Read MoreIn Chicago’s Morgan Park neighborhood, 16% to 35% of residents are at risk of experiencing food insecurity. To help address the problem, Dion’s Chicago Dream and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois unveiled a Dream Vault – a set of network-enabled smart lockers that provide free, fresh produce – at the Blue Door Neighborhood Center Morgan Park. FOX 32, CBS Chicago, and Block Club Chicago covered this uplifting story.
Read MoreEnvironmental justice leader Katherine Egland is calling on President Biden to stop the biomass industry from harming our climate and disadvantaged communities in the South.
Read MoreOn October 19, environmental justice leaders held a press conference to call on President Biden to stop the expansion of the biomass industry, which is polluting Southern communities and clearcutting Southern forests.
Read MoreIn a Newsweek opinion piece, Kathy Egland of EEECHO — who chairs the national NAACP board’s Environmental & Climate Justice Committee – calls on President Biden to patch a hole in his ambitious environmental justice agenda: industrial-scale logging and highly polluting wood pellet mills cropping up in low-income, majority-Black communities across the South.
Read MoreDion Dawson of Dion’s Chicago Dream is developing innovative ways to ensure all people have the healthy food they need to thrive. Story & Reach was proud to work with MatchPoint Studios to produce this video about Dion’s latest innovation: the Dream Vault.
Read MoreIn a small, majority Black town in Mississippi, residents are sounding the alarm on Drax – the owner of a local wood-pellet plant – for exposing them to dangerous levels of air pollution.
The Drax factory has been fined for exceeding its air-pollution permits, but still received federal subsidies to build more wood-pellet plants across the South.
Despite claims that burning wood pellets for power is climate-friendly, studies show it produces more greenhouse gasses than coal.
Read MoreThe 19th News Exclusive: The Fund for Frontline Power – a groundbreaking new model for climate philanthropy – announces its first $5 million in grants to 48 climate justice organizations across the country. Funding decisions are made by F4FP’s governing body, which is made up of grassroots climate justice leaders. The Solutions Project, the Climate Justice Alliance, and the People’s Climate Innovation Center co-created the fund to accelerate the “solidarity philanthropy” movement, where funders work in solidarity with grassroots leaders rather than making top-down decisions. The fund is supported by environmental foundations, big green groups, the sports industry, and the company Seventh Generation.
Read MoreFor the Chicago Ukraine (c Ukraine) cultural showcase, ShoCo Chicago member Oksana Ambroz-Trychta has re-released her beautiful, handcrafted collections of decorative pillows & dolls, & will donate all proceeds to Ukrainian shelters housing orphans & mothers in need.
Read MoreFunded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Berkeley Lab's IMPEL program helps building efficiency start-ups overcome the "commercialization valley of death." The program is the subject of an in-depth article by Commercial Property Executive, a leading publication for commercial real estate professionals.
Read MoreNoria Energy designed Aquasol – South America’s largest floating solar array, at Colombia’s Urrá dam – to show how hydropower and floating solar can work together to generate more energy, more reliably.
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