Contributed Photos.
An open garage door welcomed the spring weather into a lively warehouse. Inside, conversations between 50 environmentally-minded residents filled the air. Delicious food—using rescued ingredients—appeared on reusable plates, and wine made its way into aluminum cups. On blue slips of paper, people cast their votes on eight t-shirt designs by local artists.
Hand-painted signs prompting climate action peeked out from walls and tables. At the back of the room, attendees could make protest signs of their own.
This scene unfolded Tuesday at Haven’s Harvest’s 266 Morse St. warehouse in Hamden, where Rock to Rock hosted its launch party ahead of its annual all-ages bike ride and green fair. Since its launch in 2008, the annual Earth Day event has raised over $2.5 million for local environmental and social impact nonprofits through peer-to-peer fundraising efforts and rider registration.
This year, the ride takes place on Saturday, April 26, following Earth Day. Register, fundraise and check out the route here.
The ride now consists of 19 organizational partners, ranging from CitySeed in Fair Haven to Community Dining Room in Branford, who will each assemble teams of people to bike or hike for their cause. The coalition’s lead organizers are Chris Schweitzer of the New Haven/Leon Sister City Project and Anna Ruth Pickett of the Urban Resources Initiative (URI).
“It’s good to see that people are still caring and are still pushing forward,” said Caleb MartinMooney, co-founder and board chair of Haven’s Harvest. This year, the organization’s operations budget was hit hard by federal funding cuts. But environmental justice work “is not taking a back seat” for Haven’s Harvest, MartinMooney said.
Top: Cartwright. Bottom: Urban Resources Initiative (URI) Assistant Director Chris Ozyck.
And push forward they did. Praising several hidden natural wonders in the area, Rock to Rock cheerleader Aaron Goode pointed to nonprofits like the New Haven Bioregional Group, which strives to connect residents to through offering guided experiences. The group, which Goode helps run, is part of a wider call for environmental justice and social action across the region.
Following Goode’s remarks, green space manager and Urban Resources Initiative (URI) Assistant Director Chris Ozyck walked the crowd through his strategies on how to best go about conducting peer-to-peer fundraising. He spoke about his own journey from someone who shied away from asking for help when he was having medical issues to now one of the campaign’s top fundraisers. Ozyck even read out his phone number to the crowd, encouraging them to send him a message to connect right away about fundraising.
The party’s keynote speaker was Dr. Sarah Huang, director of the Office of Equity and Environmental Justice at the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP). At the top of mind for her, and for many affected workers and interns in the room, was the recent termination of EPA grant agreements and slashing of the EPA’s national environmental justice offices, That, with other federal cuts, has already trickled down to people on the ground in Connecticut.
“Anything titled ‘environmental justice’ has been shut down. Meetings have disappeared from my calendar, and we are no longer able to communicate with the federal government,” Huang said. “I want to make sure everyone here understands what the repercussions [of these cuts] are …These effects will have ripple effects for the next couple of years and decades.”
Huang assured the crowd that environmental justice work is still happening in Connecticut, and that her office within DEEP is here to stay. She also noted the importance of environmental justice as a nonpartisan issue, from the simple right to breathe safely outdoors to the ability of children to play on playgrounds and in state parks.
She encouraged the crowd to be vocal that they are still doing environmental justice work. That’s especially resonant in New Haven, where young people are at a higher risk of asthma and other health complications because of their proximity to environmental pollutants like highways.
It could not come at a more critical time. Earlier this year, the Trump Administration banned dozens of social justice and climate change-related words from federal agency communications, putting federal grant seekers and recipients in a precarious spot.
“It is not the time to back down and it is not the time to allow fissures to happen in the movements that were already taking place,” she said.
People of all ages were in attendance, from toddlers to elders to everyone in between. One attendee was Kimball Cartwright, a New Haven resident who has been participating in Rock to Rock since its inception. As a volunteer with Haven’s Harvest, he plans to ride with and fundraise for the organization this spring.
“There’s something so comforting and positive about seeing dozens and dozens of people tonight who are all focused on making the Earth a better place to live in,” Cartwright said.
Register to ride in Rock to Rock on April 26 their website. You can also keep up to date on their upcoming events including a Day of Service and weekly bike rides through their Instagram and Facebook. In the interest of full transparency, this writer is helping organize Rock to Rock this year as an intern for URI.