During our January First Thursday Moving to Zero-waste education gathering, the topic of making our education series family-friendly came up. Wes mentioned he knew of some families who wanted to attend but were concerned their children may make it difficult for the attendees to concentrate. We also heard about other obstacles that may inhibit families from joining us in fellowship as we support each other in our accomplishments towards moving our community to a zero-waste. Here is a shortlist of barriers I heard:
- Lack of child care or activities that would educate young children
- Preparing a dish to share can be difficult for many
- Bringing their own place-settings can be a challenge for some
- Start and end times ( 6 – 8 pm) make it difficult for families with young children to participate.
I have also heard from parents that it is difficult to embrace zero-waste with such a busy life of work, school, and children. I have heard that from my own daughter.
Being retired gives John and me the luxury of time young families don’t always enjoy. How can the Moving to Conservers community wrap our arms around these families and support them in their desires to move to a zero-waste household?
After the gathering, I emailed Thea, one of the founders of Pisgah Collective, an outdoor-inspired preschool program, and asked if she would be willing to get together and brain-storm. Thea has helped us many times, most recently by developing our Use Food Scraps poster. She is awesome and so positive! We met before our January 9th potluck and had an exciting conversation and I am excited to see what develops! Thanks Thea!
A question for you
If we made the 3rd Thursday of the month a family-focused gathering would you:
- be willing to bring additional food so that we can feed families and remove the barrier and stress of preparing a dish?
- support a 5:30 start time with a 6 pm dinner and discussion time, ending the evening at 7 pm versus our current 8 pm times?
- bring an extra place setting for families to use?
- help us guarantee payment of an activities coordinator to work with children and develop zero-waste education for the gathering? (We assume $20 or $30 a month would cover costs)
What other ways could we help you and your family?
Please share your answers and thoughts and thanks so much!
