Oregon Earth Summit

Oregon Interfaith Power & Light (IPL) held their Tenth Annual Oregon Interfaith Earth Summit in February 2023, sponsored by Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon and Oregon Interfaith Power & Light (EMO/OIPL). The theme this year was: “Care for Our Common Home: Building Neighborhood Climate Resilience.”

The summit format was cleverly designed to include people from all across the state who could either travel to the summit, or watch the statewide portion of the event from home via Zoom or gather in one of ten HUB locations around the state to watch via Zoom with other people. Speakers presented by Zoom, and those who had gathered in a HUB to participate could then discuss the material with the other people in their HUB. If you watched in a HUB you likely were with members of your own community—and in some cases with members of your own congregation. Many planned small meetings to continue the discussions on an ongoing basis.

There were ten simultaneous regional gatherings at HUB locations in the Oregon cities of Beavercreek, Bend, Corvallis, Dallas, Eugene, Florence, Medford, Newberg, Portland and Salem. (Our publisher attended from Wilmington via Zoom.)

Speakers presented successful projects in their home communities and two of these might be of especial interest to North Carolinians. Video of the statewide portion of the 2023 Oregon Interfaith Earth Summit is available at youtube.com/ watch?v=nch-k9Q2Gw4, for anyone to watch or share.

Community Lighthouse: New Orleans, LA

What do you do when the lights go out?

Abel Thompson and Asia Ognibene of Together New Orleans shared about their Community Lighthouse projects in a presentation called, “Neighborhood Resiliency Centers with Solar and Battery Powered Generators.” (You can watch this at time stamp 19:20 on the youtube video referenced above.)

Community Lighthouse: 85 institutions around New Orleans plus eight locations outside in different parishes (counties) are being equipped with solar panels and batteries—a plan for what to do when the lights do go out. Everyone in New Orleans will be within a 15-minute walking distance of one of these resilience hubs, in case of disaster or major power outage.

Together New Orleans (TNO) has a vision to build the nation’s largest net-work of solar + storage resilience hubs at churches and community centers across south Louisiana.

DOE has selected Community Lighthouse as one of 14 projects nationally to receive technical support under its “Energy Storage for Social Equity” initiative, starting with the most vulnerable (e.g., people on medical equipment, people least able to leave in an emergency).

Together New Orleans equips institutions with solar panels. Locations provide cooling and heating stations, plus food preparation and distribution. See Togethernola.org to learn more.

Commissary Project: Warm Springs Indian Reservation, Warm Springs, OR

Chris Watson, executive director, Warm Springs Community Action Team shared a presentation, “The Commissary Project: Building Community & Climate Resilience on the Warm Springs Reservation.” (This can be seen at time stamp 40:00 on the youtube video.)

Because nine out of ten dollars are spent off the reservation, which is home to Wasco and Paiute tribes, this group has restored their commissary as a business incubator to encourage business development . It will create provide training and keep jobs and money on the reservation, and has room to house multiple native-owned businesses. The commissary will become an economic engine to nurture nativeowned businesses and entrepreneurs.

See warmspringscommissary.org to learn more about what this project is anticipated to do for the community.

At summit end, people were encouraged to form teams of three or more to meet and consider how to put into practice the “building neighborhood climate resilience” ideas that had been discussed at the summit.