In 2020, we kicked off our Moving to Zero-waste educational series.  Our first conversation in January was focused on Transylvania Shares, a new mutual aid organization in our community that shares stuff.

February and March focused on the benefits of a plant-based diet.  Thanks to a wonderful presentation from Noel and Patrick in February and another presentation from Evan in March, we received a great education and a lot to think about.

Since the stay-at-home order due to COVID 19 was issued shortly thereafter, we did not have our gathering where we had a conversation about our studies.  Nonetheless, people have reached out and said they would like support to reduce the amount of meat in their diets.  Fantastic.

I reached out and asked Shane, a vegan and owner of GreenGo Cleaning Company, and a huge supporter of zero-waste and community if she would mind guiding us.  She said she would.  Thank you Shane!  Look for her tips on our website and in our newsletter.

We will host a conference call on June 18th to discuss the issue in greater detail.  We will provide details in our next newsletter.

As we stated in our last newsletter, we will prominently discuss the systems in our community that cause harm to our black community and others.  Our hope is to change those systems.  We can do this.

North Carolina industrial hog farms have been working with legislators to remove rights from the communities that surround the farms.  Many of the communities are black communities.

We encourage our community to study and learn more about the issue.  Here is an article that was recommended as a good start on understanding the issue:  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/27/it-smells-like-a-decomposing-body-north-carolinas-polluting-pig-farms

I also found this webpage and video that is another education piece:  https://www.farmsanctuary.org/neighbors/north-carolina/

If you have other educational resources you would like to share, please send them our way and we will share them as well.

Looking forward to learning more and sharing a community conversation.

Thank you.