Impact.Edition // Issue 03 2024

WHY NOT US? MIAMI, FLO R IDA / IS S UE 0 3 / 2 0 2 4

WE LIVE OUT HERE. WE REFUSE TO LET CHANGEMAKERS GO UNHEARD. WE DARE TO CHANGE THE NARRATIVES HOLDING US ALL BACK.

Cover image: Environmental activists Will Charouhis & Jamora Arroyo-Jefferson.

Read their story on page 34.

Photo by Greg Clark, Good Miami Project

R

ight now, our community & the world need us to see our creativity as a superpower and act on that power with empathy & compassion.

Right now, it’s time to rebuild local ecosystems to hold a place for everyone.

Right now, we need independent solutions journalism to continue to reveal what’s working, or promising, not just to remind us that there is hope but to empower every person to take meaningful actions for a better future.

As a nonprofit magazine driven primarily by volunteers, Impact.Edition has remained dedicated to producing stories where community members can see themselves – and each other; where the impact of sustainable development and a strong collective voice is undeniable.

To maintain independence and produce highquality solutions journalism, we heavily rely on support from conscious and dedicated members of our society who want to change harmful narratives and spotlight good deeds; who want to shift unhealthy mindsets toward a regenerative future.

When you get involved, we can uncover more meaningful untold stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things and keep Impact.

Edition free & accessible to a broader audience.

Your donation to Impact.Edition empowers our storytelling mission and collective voice. Thank you for choosing to ignite hope and heal divides in challenging times.

SUPPORT HERE

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CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

14

LET NATURE TALK TO YOU

22

CLIMATE COMMUNITY, WHAT’S NEXT?

28

TASTE THE DIFFERENCE

34

WHY NOT US?

44

IN HER OWN LIGHT

50

TIE UP LOOSE THREADS

62

YES, YOU CAN

74

DEMOCRACY IS RIGHT HERE

82

TURN THE PAGE TO FREADOM

88

IT’S TOO REAL TO BE MYTH

94

I MADE THAT BOOK

Photo by Greg Clark

WHAT'S I NSIDE

We acknowledge that the territory now known as "South Florida" has been the traditional homeland of Native nations, including the Calusa, the Tequesta, and today the Miccosukee and the Seminole. We pay our respects to the traditional custodians of this land and their Elders, both past and present.

WHY NOT US? WHY NOT NOW? E

nvision our communities, where residents actively compost and recycle, striving toward the goal of zero waste.

Every neighborhood’s streets are adorned with lush trees, creating vibrant, heatprotected spaces. Locals enjoy access to fresh and sustainably farmed seasonal foods.

School teachers are appreciated and safe.

They’re empowered to lead classes with openness and fairness, where students delve into history and its context and can grapple with its meaning. Library shelves are brimming with books boasting diverse perspectives, providing a wealth of knowledge to the community. Children, regardless of background, have free access to music education, poetry sessions, environmental workshops, and ballet classes.

Water resources are clean and well-protected.

The knowledge and wisdom of indigenous communities are integrated into urban development. Wildlife thrives, and residents tend backyards of native plants, creating a harmonious coexistence with nature.

This idyllic reality is not an unattainable myth; despite the challenges we face, thousands of impact agents who love and call this city home are making these opportunities possible. These individuals of different ages, social statuses, races, and occupations are tirelessly working to create a future that’s more sustainable, resilient, inclusive, and just.

This new issue is our open invitation to you to learn from our community champions – there’s so much we can do now to awaken greater love and care for our communities, nature, and ourselves.

The stories in this year’s collection are unafraid to explore the challenges ahead but ultimately offer hope that we can better nurture a collaborative ecosystem of conscious citizens who are ready to go the extra mile toward a more peaceful, regenerative, and thriving future.

Will you join them? Will you join us?

With gratitude,

Yulia Strokova & Samantha Schalit

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BOARD OF DIRECTORS Sanjeev Chatterjee, Founder & CEO, Media for Change Scarlett Lanzas, Founder & CEO, Accountable Impact Greg Clark, Photographer & Founder, Good Miami Project IMPACT.EDITION PRODUCTION TEAM Yulia Strokova, Founder & Publisher Samantha Schalit, Editor-in-Chief Juan Ortega, Art Director Yadira Diaz, Media Producer

Kacie Brown, Senior Social Impact Writer Patrick McCaslin, Social Impact Writer Sarah Knowlton, Social Impact Writer Paloma Pimentel, Social Impact Writer Nina Dietz, Social Impact Writer

Impact.Edition (ISSN 2832-4706) is a Miami-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit media organization devoted to sustainable development and collective impact, with a mission to elevate the voices of local changemakers who prove their efforts toward positive lasting change – from addressing social inequality to saving the planet from environmental ruin.

For article proposals, advertising, and reprint inquiries, please contact us at hi@impactedition.org.

DONORS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT We have an incalculable number of people to thank for this magazine becoming a reality. From the constant support of family and friends to colleagues and community partners, we are eternally grateful for everyone's help in empowering our mission. The print production would not be possible without the major support of the Green Family Foundation Trust and our readers, who help scale best practices and creative solutions for a more just, more sustainable world through the power of storytelling.

hi@impactedition.org | @impact.edition | impactedition.org

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SDG Challenge Grand Finale at Kaseya Center & Miami Heat game

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CHALLENGE ACCEPTED With the world off track in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, we need action, and we need everyone — scientists, policymakers, the public and private sectors, and, of course, Photo by Evens St. Louis

youth. Where can the next generation of globallyminded and community-focused leaders find a nurturing local ecosystem that empowers them to be active players in what comes next?

Photo courtesy of Sereia Films

by Nina Dietz, Samantha Schalit, & Yulia Strokova

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Photo by Evens St. Louis

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ne of the goals we had was to keep growing the SDG ecosystem in South Florida,” says Scarlett Lanzas, founder and CEO of Accountable Impact and dedicated advocate for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Challenge serves as a platform to encourage students to think critically about present-day sustainability choices and empower these young innovators to collaborate with leading companies, local governments, universities, and nonprofit organizations.

In October 2023, South Florida became the first US host of the SDG Challenge. Accountable Impact assembled the Challenge as an incubator event where students from South Florida universities teamed up with major companies to develop actionable ideas to accelerate the SDGs.

A diverse, cross-sectoral, multigenerational collaboration of this scale was backed by the Miami-Dade Beacon Council.

At the kick-off event, Rodrick Miller, the Council’s President and CEO, asked the participating teams to consider these questions as part of the Challenge:

Scarlett has been championing and accelerating the UN Global Goals in Miami for years by educating and emboldening our local leaders to build this framework into their practices and make sustainable choices. This SDG Challenge is just the latest example of how Scarlett leads and nurtures a collaborative community focused on the SDGs in Miami.

When I say ecosystem, it's everyone in the different sectors: private, public, public-private partnerships, academia, students, nonprofit community leaders coming together, and I can feel it in the air now that the SDGs are becoming part of our language in South Florida.

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How do we build a company that’s sustainable? How do we build one that's inclusive…ensuring that no matter what part of the region someone lives in, whether they're black, white, purple, man, woman, veteran, retired, that everybody can participate in the economy?

For Ilona Vega Jaramillo, the Vice President of International Economic Development at the Beacon Council, hosting the SDG Challenge was a “no-brainer.”

In order for Miami-Dade to continue evolving into this big, great global city center that we believe ourselves to be, we need to offer opportunities to everybody; it can't just be for a select group of people who are benefiting from all of this growth that we are experiencing. And so I believe that is…our number one goal.

Lisette den Breems, the Consul General of the Netherlands in Miami, is among the supporters of the SDG Challenge and attended its kick-off to address the inaugural participants: “It's all about walking the talk, as we say, and making a difference. I hope you will seize this opportunity, this challenge, to learn, to think out of the box, to experiment, and not to be afraid to share your ideas from your different backgrounds.”

Scarlett partnered with four local universities – Florida International University School of Architecture, Communication + The Arts, Lynn University Social Impact Lab & College of Business and Management, Miami Dade College Changemaker Education and Social Innovation, and the University of Miami Herbert Business School Division of Development and Alumni Relations.

Student interest was tremendous, and additional universities are already clamoring to participate in the next competition.

For Natalie Martinez, a junior at The Honors College at FIU, the SDG Challenge offered an opportunity to learn while improving her hometown.

“The work that me and my four teammates are doing is likely to have an impact on the Miami Herald operations in the long term,” Natalie says.

Natalie was one of five students on the winning team. Their proposal is to expand the Herald’s climate coverage by

Photo by Evens St. Louis

She speaks from experience. In the Netherlands, SDG Challenges occur multiple times a year with participation from top organizations – such as Johnson & Johnson, DHL and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – and see widespread adoption of the innovations from those collaborations.

The intention and interest were more localized for the SDG Challenge Miami, with four businesses signing on: Carbon BioCapture, The Miami Herald, Emergent Global Investments, and Impact Hub South Florida.

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IT'S ALL ABOUT WALKING THE TALK, AS WE SAY, AND MAKING A DIFFERENCE. Lisette den Breems Consulate General of the Netherlands in Miami

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Photo by Evens St. Louis

Carbon BioCapture's Photobioreactor (PBR) microalgal technology on display during the SDG Challenge

refocusing locals on practical actions that can positively impact our environment. They also proposed that the Herald integrate the Goals into routine coverage and use the SDG icons to help familiarize Miamians with this global language.

“I could hope that after the sprint day, not just my team, but all the teams, their designated company sponsors, decide to take into account what they're presenting for pitch day… and become inspired to go back to their shareholders as well as their superiors and say, look at what the students have done. This is amazing. This is mutually beneficial,” Natalie says.

Scarlett was impressed with all of the projects presented during the competition. The Carbon BioCapture team’s proposal emphasized the company’s competitive standing as an emerging ESG investment. The Impact Hub South Florida team positioned the Hub’s potential as an idea incubator and driving force in the region for SDG 13, Climate Action. The Emergent Global

Photo by Evens St. Louis

Investments team placed second with a proposal to create an SDG-aligned portfolio and consistently check that companies within the firm’s ESG investing portfolios are actually living up to their promises of societal good.

“Through the SDG Challenge, we're developing the next generation of sustainability leaders. If we had invested in more sustainable development and education at a younger age, for example, if I had learned this in high school, maybe people in my generation would have made better choices, would have invested more responsibly, and would have understood that subsidizing fossil fuel was only going to create the crisis that we have now.

Photo by Evens St. Louis

“Building compassionate leaders is also important. As we grow and technology advances, including AI and other techy things that supposedly help advance humanity, we need to do it in a responsible, ethical, and compassionate way. So maybe we're not at the level that we can still influence legislation. But maybe we can develop those young leaders that are going to do the right things for generations to come.”

INVESTING IN EDUCATION IS KEY SO FUTURE LEADERS DO NOT REPEAT THE MISTAKES OUR GENERATION DID. Scarlett Lanzas Accountable Impact

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Photo Courtesy of Pelican Harbor Seabird Station

LET NATURE TALK TO YOU A guide to rebuilding nature where it’s been lost and creating homes where wildlife can move in.

by Yulia Strokova, Sarah Knowlton

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From left to right: Shannon Jones, Brian Diaz, Thomas J. Morrell, & Fernando Bretos

U

nlike an ordinary field guide, Wild Miami describes the rich and fragile biodiversity of South Florida with fun and flair.

Part travel book, part nature guide, part conservation spotlight, this handy yet extensive guide has something for everyone to enjoy and discover in this vibrant tropical city. With fields of expertise, unique perspectives, and a deep appreciation for the beauty of nature, four friends embarked on this writing journey three years ago, somewhat accidentally.

“I received a call from Will McKay, who’s with Timber Press in Portland, Oregon,” says Fernando Bretos, a conservationist scientist. “And he said, Fernando, we’ve just published a book called Wild LA in collaboration with the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, and it came out great; it’s selling really well. We want to make Miami the next stop. He pitched the idea to me, and I told Shannon about it, and we said let’s do it.”

Shannon Jones, who oversees conservation programs at the Phillip & Patricia Frost Museum of Science, immediately shared the idea with her husband, Thomas J. Morrell, a fisheries biologist with The Billfish Foundation and co-founder of MORAES, as well as with Brian Diaz, an interpretive naturalist.

At that time, Brian worked with the Frost’s Museum Volunteers for the Environment (MUVE) program.

“It’s really just the result of four friends coming together and working hard,” Fernando continues.

As a program officer at the Ocean Foundation, Fernando oversees projects that study marine migratory species, restore

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tropical coastal habitats, and use ocean science diplomacy to encourage countries to protect shared marine resources.

“I think, if you get outside, as an everyday Miami citizen, you’ll really love what you see in South Florida. Just get outside, get in the water, and let nature talk to you,” he says.

The Wild Miami guide profiles 305 species – from beautiful flowers and towering palm trees to manatees and green tree frogs to spotted sunfish and great blue herons. It also includes 25-day trip itineraries to help everyone explore the natural wonders on trails and beaches, in public parks, and in the backyard.

“There are a lot of hurdles that we, as a ground-zero city, have to overcome. And it’s tough to have somebody care about that without understanding, seeing it, or being involved,” adds Thomas. “So, if you put someone on those field trips, they will be inundated with information, causes, and organizations that they might just be unaware of.”

I think that’s just one of the things that the book aims to do: take you from your house and put you in these parks and these field trips and see these species so that you can understand it, appreciate it, and then fly for them.

While Thomas and Fernando encourage tourists and locals to get outside, Brian emphasizes the importance of looking within our own backyards.

"I live here in Hialeah, and Hialeah is not the first thing people think of when talking about nature. The word ‘Hialeah’ itself is a Seminole word; it means a beautiful prairie that used to be part of the Everglades out here. As far as the eye could see, that prairie is gone. However, there’s still plenty of opportunity to bring wildlife back.

Brian believes everyone can help rebuild the ecosystem through plant life: "Research which plants are native to your area, the type of soil they require, their watering needs, and their sunlight requirements. Then, go out and find sources that are growing them and bring them back."

“It all starts from that base,” he adds. “The plants are the food for the wildlife, so if you give them the food and the resources, they will come back.”

Shannon also follows this practice. As Brian advised, she planted coontie plants in her backyard to bring back the rare atala hairstreak butterfly.

Photo by Greg Clark

Over the last five years, I’ve cultivated a biodiversity of native plants, and I now observe all kinds of birds, butterflies, and creatures that I’d never even known existed coming back to an area that was once just a lawn for many years."

Is that a giant potato suspended in the water?

Nope, it’s the Florida manatee, a slow-moving marine mammal known for its plump figure and habit of munching on seagrass all day. (Wild Miami)

During World War II, the over-harvesting of wild coontie for starch production caused the butterfly population to plummet, and the species was nearly extirpated from Florida.

“The atala hairstreak butterfly was actually thought to be completely extinct for a while because we had over-harvested, and now the coontie plant has come back; we use it in landscaping a lot,” Shannon says. “And now it is in my house.”

“I had been caring for them for about two and a half years, and the atala butterflies have found their way to it. It’s just a really great visual in my backyard for practicing what we preach in the book.”

“There are a lot of people who really go above and beyond to help these animals,” says Pelican Harbor communications director Hannah McDougall.

Credits

While it showcases the vast array of trails, parks, and species in the Miami area, the book also features a comprehensive list of local conservation organizations that need everyone’s support and involvement. One such emergency wildlife center is Pelican Harbor Seabird Station, dedicated to healing and releasing many native species like squirrels, hawks, opossums, turtles, and gulls 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

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IF EVERYBODY JUST DID ONE LITTLE THING, IT COULD MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE. Fishing hook and line injuries are common in pelicans, so it’s vital to be aware of your surroundings when you fish and always dispose of your hook and line in the appropriate receptacles.

Hannah also flags the importance of maintaining native plant and insect life for birds to eat rather than providing them with human food. “Do not ever, ever, ever feed wildlife. Let them be wild, don’t feed them your Cheetos or french fries.”

“When we see a decline in birds, it’s obvious that there’s something going wrong in the environment, and it’s not long until that starts to impact us as well,” Hannah adds.

The wildlife ecosystems may be almost invisible at a glance, but their presence – and absence – can still be felt. Something extraordinary happens at South Florida beaches at night between March and October: sea turtle nesting season. Tourists and beachgoers may have noticed areas on beaches marked off by stakes or yellow caution tape.

International Coastal Cleanup Day Photo Courtesy of Pelican Harbor Seabird Station

Although brown pelicans are no longer considered endangered, other pelicans and seabirds are still far from thriving. According to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, one in eight bird species faces extinction. A loss of bird species can indicate

an overall loss of biodiversity, which reduces the entire ecosystem’s productivity.

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Photo by Greg Clark

These are the areas where a sea turtle has laid her eggs in the sand. The sand acts as an incubation area where the eggs will hatch after about 60 days. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 provides specific protections for sea turtle nests, and The Miami-Dade County Sea Turtle Conservation Program monitors nesting efforts.

Pelican Harbor warns: If you see a baby turtle in the wild, remember they are doing just fine. Turtles are precocial; they can independently explore and find food after hatching from their eggs. What tourists and locals must do is take care of their trash. Cigarette butts, fishing lines, and other plastic trash can harm turtles immediately.

“The babies go out, and they start looking for food, and the first thing that they might catch is plastic trash in the sand or a cigarette butt, which can kill them,” explains Nestor Cano, an environmental activist and CEO of Turtl Project, a 100% petroleum-free sustainable water sports apparel brand.

THERE ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO REALLY GO ABOVE AND BEYOND TO HELP THESE ANIMALS. Hannah McDougall Pelican Harbor Seabird Station

“Another thing that might endanger baby turtles is light.

Sea turtles use the light of the moon to navigate the way to the ocean. Artificial lighting from streets and buildings and flashlights on the beach can disorient them from their way back to the water.”

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IT'S MIND-BLOWING: SINCE 2019, WE'VE HOSTED 275+ BEACH CLEANUPS AND REMOVED 85,000+ LBS OF TRASH. The problem of plastic pollution extends from land to water, and sea turtles, along with other marine animals, can encounter dangers from plastic their entire lives. Initiatives like Plastic Free Miami Beach/Plastic Free 305, which involve businesses and volunteer cleanups with organizations like Debris Free Ocean and Clean Miami Beach, aim to encourage everyone to become environmental stewards and switch to reusable alternatives.

Sophie Ringel, founder of Clean Miami Beach, states: “I’m so thankful to everyone for being a part of our growing movement and creating a safe and clean environment where our beautiful wildlife can thrive.”

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Photo Courtesy of Clean Miami Beach

Sophie Ringel, founder of Clean Miami Beach, holds artwork made entirely out of trash & debris found on Miami Beach

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CLIMATE COMMUNITY, WHAT’S NEXT? Collectively, there is no doubt that we can scale solutions that will reduce climate crises and reverse marine degradation. To do this, we need a cultural shift toward one climate ecosystem

Photo by Greg Clark

where scientists, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and foundations co-create a participative, inclusive, and regenerative agenda for the many – not the few. Miami-Dade is answering that call.

by Yulia Strokova

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N

ow that we know the climate community is here, that's already a big win for South Florida," says Daniel Kleinman, the founder of Seaworthy Collective and a blue tech entrepreneur. Four years ago, he returned to Miami to build a community with more room for ocean enthusiasts and climate impact innovators – including himself.

"I lived in Boston and San Diego to pursue my work in marine robotics, returning home to South Florida to start my own company as there weren't opportunities to participate in ocean innovation work locally. To build this pathway for myself and others, Seaworthy Collective takes a holistic, bottom-up approach where community is central," says Daniel.

"This work involves multiple layers of systems change, but it ultimately begins with building a community that reflects the diversity of people and disciplines required to drive interdisciplinary collaboration and technology forward."

Daniel Kleinman Seaworthy Collective

Social Hours or cohorts of ocean and climate impact startup founders known as Sea Change Makers, local enthusiasts and entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds and disciplines stepped into the ocean of opportunities to connect, scale their endeavors, and engage on topics ranging from pollution and resilient and adaptive urban coastlines to greenhouse gas reduction, regenerative aquaculture, and much more.

"We now have startups that are demonstrating it is not only possible to operate here but also to thrive, as exemplified by

Photo Courtesy of Seaworthy Collective

In recent years, Daniel and his team (who began as volunteers) have made the ocean innovation space more inclusive; it’s not just exclusively accessible to individuals with science degrees. Whether through their Miami Climate Community

STARTUPS ARE DEMONSTRATING IT'S NOT ONLY POSSIBLE TO OPERATE HERE BUT TO THRIVE.

Seaworthy's Startup Showcase Left to right: Doug Scribner, Investor; Yadira Diaz of Gradible; Tamara Kahn of Seaworthy Collective; Blayne Ross of Shorelock; Daniel Kleinman of Seaworthy Collective, Troy Scott of Shorelock; Neesha Mirchandani of Impact Stars; Johanan Dujon of Algas Organics

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Photos courtesy of Kind Designs

Kind Designs, the 3D print seawalls company from our first cohort. They have successfully raised $5 million and secured another four and a half million in pre-orders," Daniel proudly states.

Among Seaworthy’s recent graduates is Johanan Dujon of Algas Organics, who transforms Sargassum into cost-effective, world-class organic crop nutrition and protection products; here is also Yadira Diaz of Gradible, the environmental concierge, which offers wide-ranging solutions for businesses to become zero-waste. With 8 million tons of plastic entering the oceans every year, solutions like Johanan’s and Yadira’s should be scalable and visible along with a supportive, inclusive, and nurturing climate ecosystem for early-stage entrepreneurs.

Daniel continues:

What does it look like to involve other stakeholders who haven't traditionally been involved? This inclusivity is crucial. It provides startups with an opportunity to break through, secure product-market fit, including government contracts, establish their proof of concept, and become investable and scalable.

So, this is a big advantage that allows emerging entrepreneurs to pilot and connect with opportunities that historically may not have been accessible to them. Furthermore, we’re seeing policy innovation through organizations like The Miami-Dade Innovation Authority that are starting to build this bridge.

Launched in 2023 with seed funding from Miami-Dade County, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Citadel Founder and CEO Ken Griffin, the Miami-Dade Innovation Authority (MDIA) was founded with equal private, public, and philanthropic funding totaling $9 million. The first MDIA Public Innovation Challenge aimed to find sustainable uses for Sargassum seaweed, and the second one accepted proposals offering sustainable solutions to improve Miami International Airport to better serve its residents and visitors.

While the blue tech space is booming, ocean financial literacy among investors, including building the blue bonds market, remains profoundly underfunded. According to the Sustainable Ocean Economy report released by Citi GPS in June 2023, Sustainable Development Goal - 14, 'Life Below Water,' is the least funded, despite its ability to support all other SDGs. The funding gap amounts to approximately $149 billion per year, compared to the estimated required annual spend of $175 billion.

Daniel notes: “When we look at the financial side of ecosystem development, philanthropy is the biggest missing piece, especially locally in South Florida. I view philanthropy as the catalyst for ecosystem development and startup pipeline development. The problem is that philanthropy in the ocean space has been so antiquated with a focus on solutions that aren't scalable, mainly addressing symptomatic issues such as saving sea turtles or beach cleanups. The reality is we need root-cause addressing solutions in parallel to these traditional restoration efforts to solve these problems much faster and more effectively than what philanthropy has supported historically.”

New funding opportunities are coming: The U.S. Economic Development Administration recently named South Florida

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TO BE PERFECTLY HONEST, IN SOUTH FLORIDA, IN MIAMI, WE CAN'T GET THERE WITHOUT PRIVATE SECTOR PARTNERSHIP, INVESTMENT AND THE WHOLE COMMUNITY. a Climate Resilience Tech Hub. Getting on the list isn’t just an honorary accomplishment and validation for efforts underway across Greater Miami. It opens roughly $75 million in federal grants.

“Climate Tech is a very fast-moving field. Miami-Dade is primed to lead efforts in climate globally and to grow a diverse workforce to support jobs that will be created. Our job as government, and as one of the largest engines in the local economy, is to support the growth of innovation aimed at tackling our most pressing challenges and to ensure that these solutions benefit all of our community equitably,” says Francesca de Quesada Covey, the Chief Innovation and Economic Development Officer for Miami-Dade County.

A clear illustration of the government's willingness to engage with a wider community is the response to public discontent regarding a contentious proposal for a $4.6 billion seawall in the delicate marine ecosystem of Biscayne Bay. The plan, initially proposed by The US Army Corps of Engineers, was pushed back after strong local opposition from residents and environmental groups. Francesca continues: “I can't point to any other project where a community was able to work as collaboratively with the US Army Corps. It happened because the community showed why it was important to solve this issue in partnership and understanding the many nuances of the problem.”

Galen Treuer, who works closely with Francesca and is one of the key drivers of the climate innovation ecosystem, asserts that leaders in the private sector have to step up with the same level of involvement and engagement as prominent climate nonprofit leaders like Miami Waterkeeper, Catalyst, or CLEO Institute. And the time is now:

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“To be perfectly honest, in South Florida, in Miami, we can't get there without private sector partnership, investment and the whole community; for example, we won't get the solutions that we need without the real estate developers, because they're the ones building the infrastructure that will determine whether people's homes and workplaces are safe, or not, in the future.”

Today, everyone has the chance to engage in discussions shaping Miami-Dade’s climate resilience future. The Climate Tech Meetups held monthly at the Beacon Council office and cohosted with Miami-Dade County consistently draw enthusiastic visionaries; Galen and Matt Haggman, openly declare: “No one is invited because everyone's invited.” And the room on the 24th floor is always packed.

“We open our doors so that all can participate and create a platform, hopefully, that people will ultimately see as theirs,” says Matt Haggman, the Executive Vice President of Miami-Dade Beacon Council, where he leads Opportunity Miami. “But it really starts with outreach and continues through different activities.

With our climate tech meetups, I would say three-fourths of the people at these meetups are often individuals who have never even met before.”

As the future-focused arm of the Miami-Dade Beacon Council, Opportunity Miami is a platform for people passionate about where Miami goes next. The conversations on Greater Miami’s economic future happen onsite and online, then are viewable on YouTube and in Opportunity Miami’s newsletters. For the last two years, the organization has truly evolved into a media platform that makes the case for what’s possible by telling the story of the entrepreneurs already here doing the work.

“We're in a world that requires compasses more than maps.

We know generally the direction we want to go in. But every

month, every year, things are changing so rapidly,” Matt continues. “Think about how AI was talked about last year versus this year. So the idea was, let's create a platform that literally, on a daily and weekly basis, is elevating solutions and ideas on issues that are critical to our economic future.”

Matt identifies three areas critical for Miami’s sustainable future as a climate tech leader: entrepreneurship and innovation, talent and inclusion, and the transition to a net zero economy. Under each category are extraordinary entrepreneurs who are launching transformative efforts that are underway right now. Matt expands:

Photo Courtesy of Opportunity Miami

WE'RE IN A WORLD THAT REQUIRES COMPASSES MORE THAN MAPS.

“How we produce food: we have Atlantic Sapphire, the largest indoor aquaculture facility in the world, that thinks they can ultimately get to a net zero supply chain. How we get around: we have one of the largest electric vehicle charging network companies in the US, Blink, based here in Miami Beach and another one, OBE Power, that's rapidly growing.

How we heat the dwellings that we live in: Watsco, the largest air conditioning distributor in North America, is based in Coconut Grove. One of the really exciting startups in the air conditioning space, Blue Frontier, based in Boca Raton, which is beginning to scale. We see companies like Lennar, through its venture arm LenX, they are investing in companies that are developing innovative solutions such as clean concrete.

ALL THESE DEVELOPMENTS ARE TAKING PLACE IN MIAMI. WHAT'S EXCITING IS THAT, AS WE MOVE FORWARD, THESE INITIATIVES CAN ONLY GROW. ULTIMATELY, WHAT LIES AHEAD IS THE POSSIBILITY OF MIAMI BECOMING A GLOBAL HUB FOR CLIMATE SOLUTIONS. Matt Haggman Miami-Dade Beacon Council & Opportunity Miami.

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TASTE THE DIFFERENCE How we farm – and deal with waste – affects environmental health, economic Photo by Greg Clark

profitability, and social equity. These local services are proving we can better feed a localized, circular farm-to-table economy.

Photo courtesy of Sereia Films

by Yulia Strokova, Paloma Pimentel

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I

magine Miami, where everyone participates in composting and recycling. Items are neatly sorted into separate bins for aluminum, glass, paper, and plastic. The streets are bustling with electric buses, while cars are noticeably fewer. Locals have access to fresh seasonal foods sourced locally and sustainably farmed. This is how Vanessa Aflalo describes her dreams for her current hometown.

Living and studying in other parts of the country and abroad, gaining a sense of what they are doing right, and coming back to Miami afterward led me to perpetually ask questions as to why we are not doing things as effectively as them.

The harvest list is updated weekly with a rotating assortment of seasonal fruits, vegetables, and fresh herbs – from acorn squash to sweet potatoes to broccolini. For the full experience, you can add locally made granola, raw wildflower honey, ceremonial matcha tea, pasture-raised organic eggs, beef, hummus, and much more.

“Local small farmers have to deal with a lot of challenges – from immigration laws and potential labor shortages to high-heat weather that threatens the harvest, especially during the hot summer season. What we offer them is to be under this green delivery platform that benefits them in many ways – through a reliable delivery system, marketing exposure, and building partnerships with restaurants and cafes,” Vanessa says.

I had a call from one of the farms, and they told me that if it weren't for our business, they would have to shut down because last summer was very hard for them. So really connecting those farms to the communities here in MiamiDade and Broward is part of what we focus on.

While there’s still a lot of farmland in the US, the number of small farm owners has dwindled drastically. Today, less than 1% of the US population lives on a farm, and the number of farms is decreasing. The most endangered kind is the small family farm, defined by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) as a place that produces and sells at least $1,000 of agricultural products per year and has a gross income of $350,000 or less.

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Photo by Greg Clark

After spending several years in France and England, she settled back in Miami. Unpacking suitcases overweight with inspiration and knowledge of zero-waste practices and circular economies, Vanessa decided to create something different for Miami. In 2021, she founded Green Tomato, an online farmer's market delivery platform that sources fresh produce from South Florida farms and delivers it to your door the same day it’s harvested.

In the US, small farms accounted for less than one-fourth of food production in 2020, down from nearly half in the 1990s.

And the agricultural landscape continues to change, fueled by technology and increased industrialization.

The recent county-commissioned report by the University of Florida warns: “Miami-Dade’s agricultural industry, which a century ago fed the nation in winter with vegetables and fruit, is in danger of hitting a critical point where it doesn’t have enough farmland to remain viable.”

Most of the farms here are monocropping farms that grow a single crop year after year on the same land. Some farms are starting to do vertical or hydroponic farming that produces year-round high-nutrient harvests, regardless of environmental challenges. It also requires less water, fertilizer, and land usage compared to conventional agricultural practices.

Vanessa Aflalo Founder & CEO, Green Tomato

Vanessa’s vision isn’t linear; it’s circular: Green Tomato is a framework for a low-emission, zero-waste agricultural economy that creates demand for innovative, sustainable farmers and solutions for consumers. Vanessa explains that quality, local produce from earth to doorstep, delivered responsibly in reusable tote bags instead of cardboard boxes or plastic, encourages customers to practice zero-waste measures.

When you have a guava that was harvested that same morning, you can really taste the difference, and you're not creating additional waste. By using a reusable bag, we're helping the environment and lowering our carbon footprint. We ask our customers to return their insulated tote bags to our driver so we can up-cycle them properly. Customers who don't return their tote bags upon canceling are charged a penalty fee per bag.

Completing the cycle of consumption means dealing with food waste responsibly, too. Rather than throwing away leftover food scraps, they can be collected and returned to a farm that converts them into fertilizer and uses them to nourish more crops.

Reducing food waste is the easiest starting point to reduce its carbon footprint. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 58% of methane emissions result from food waste in landfills at Municipal Solid Waste facilities.

Ideally, we would have a municipal service that collects Miami’s solid food waste to compost, just like trash pickup.

Currently, the County is running out of landfills and space for all its garbage – especially after a fire gutted a waste incinerator plant in Doral that processed about half the trash the county collects.

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Officials also project that the North Dade Landfill would be exhausted by 2026 and reach its closure, “causing residents and commercial haulers to drive 40 miles” to the South Dade Landfill. The South Dade Landfill, a 300-acre site near Homestead, was forecast to reach capacity by 2030.

County leadership needs time to address this severe waste problem, but Miami-Dade's 2.7 million residents don’t have to wait. They can take matters into their own hands by collecting their food waste for composting.

Soilmate provides composting services for residential and commercial customers in Miami, with bin pickups weekly or bi-weekly. For those in north Miami-Dade and Broward, Reünable produces composting for communities, events, and businesses. They also offer waste audits and consulting services for food service industry businesses.

Compost for Life has already donated over 23,000 pounds of ‘black gold’ to local farmers and community gardeners like the Green Haven Project, Blue Horizon Farm, Health in the Hood, and Aloha Redland. The organization also partners with community leaders to host community dropoff hubs, or you can host your own. The submissions are running through their website.

Photos by Greg Clark

When Francisco Torres, founder of Compost for Life, began his pioneering journey to bring good, reliable, affordable composting options to Miami, commercial and residential composting were not mainstream. Today, Compost for Life serves over 40 businesses, including schools and hospitals, and offers residential pick-up service.

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YOU OFTEN HEAR PEOPLE IN MIAMI DON'T CARE ABOUT RECYCLING; THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT COMPOSTING. BUT WE CARE, AND WE ARE HERE —BECAUSE WE WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE AND BRING ABOUT CHANGE.

Photo by Greg Clark

Francisco Torres Compost for Life

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Young activists are using their creativity, authenticity and collective power to rewrite social narratives and policies. Will you join them?

by Kacie Brown, Yulia Strokova, & Samantha Schalit

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Photo by Greg Clark

WHY NOT US?

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W

ill Charouhis from Miami’s Ransom Everglades High School celebrated his 18th birthday with an impressive list of accomplishments. He founded a Miami-based nonprofit, Forces of Nature; planted more than 1000 mangrove trees; met with former president Barack Obama at COP26 in Glasgow; received the prestigious 2023 United Nations Human Rights Prize as the youngest member of the Global Coalition for the Universal Recognition of the Right to a Clean, Healthy, and Sustainable Environment; served as a National Youth Leader in Dr. Jane Goodall’s Institute; and pushed his school to eliminate single-use plastics. It seems Will has figured out how to overcome “eco-anxiety” – the term experts use to describe the chronic fear of environmental doom, which is especially common among young people – through education, urgency, and action:

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That minute-before-midnight mentality that pervades my peers – it’s real. We are facing the greatest climate crisis to ever face humanity. But I am an optimist. And I refuse to see the world through a bleak lens. I believe hope is the most powerful antidote in the universe. We now have the solutions to halt climate change. And we can rewrite our narrative. Every change that ever happened in this world started with the power of one.

Photo by Martina Potlach

Will discovered his “ecosystem of hope” in his own backyard. Living near the water and going kayaking, he cleaned up six miles of the mangrove coastline. Once the pandemic restrictions eased, he engaged his friends and school community to organize monthly cleanups to remove ocean trash and plastics that clog mangrove roots. Regular cleanups allow mangroves to regenerate and grow naturally.

Mangrove forests are up to five times more effective at storing carbon compared to tropical forests and 1000x more cost-efficient at protecting coastlines than seawalls.

These remarkable trees provide critical habitats for fish and marine nurseries and revive seagrasses by filtering run-off.

As powerful environmental guardians, they also reduce

IF EVERYONE IN THE WORLD PLANTS JUST THREE MANGROVE SEEDLINGS, OR CLEANS OUT THE ROOTS OF JUST ONE BED OF MANGROVES, WE CAN AMASS ENOUGH NEW FOREST AREA TO ABSORB A THIRD OF CARBON EMISSIONS AND REACH THE PLANET’S NECESSARY GOAL OF NET ZERO.

erosion, mitigate sea-level rise, and protect our houses and infrastructure from hurricane-driven storm surges.

Another young environmental steward, Jonah Basi, is actively integrating nature-based solutions.

Jonah goes paddling with the same mission: to collect propagules (seeds produced by red mangroves) floating in the water, bring them home, and put them in tanks to let the mangroves grow strong enough to transplant further. Today, this young environmental steward from Fort Lauderdale runs his nonprofit movement, Mangrove Life, and engages his classmates to plant these seeds of life and clean the waterways.

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He learned about the mangroves’ superpower from his mother, Jessica, an eco-enthusiast and psychology teacher.

“I’ve always tried to instill in my son and his friends the importance of our planet,” says Jessica. “We’re at a tipping point where if we don’t start doing more, it’s going to be too late.”

Jamora Arroyo-Jefferson started her advocacy at age nine and gave her parents a lot of the credit for this early start:

THEY’VE ENCOURAGED ME TO BE THE TRUEST VERSION OF MYSELF. Jamora is the kind of person who knows how to get her point across. Even talking to her one-on-one, her gift for leadership is evident and inspiring. Today, she’s 18 and leads environmental education initiatives with Miami Waterkeeper, served as a Nyah Project Global Youth Leadership Fellow and a 2024 National STEM Challenge Advisory Council student ambassador, and it all started with a bag of chips.

“I saw how many chip bags were being thrown away. So, I started an initiative where all my classmates would collect those chip bags during lunch. I took them home and, later, gave them to our recycling plant in Miami. I would definitely consider that my first act of environmentalism.”

As president of her school’s gender and sexuality association, she directly dispels misconceptions and stereotypes about the LGBTQ+ community with trivia and Q&A events designed for all students’ enjoyment. As an impact agent with The Women’s Fund of Miami-Dade, she volunteers to help promote women’s advocacy efforts among other women her age on social media.

Jamora’s always looking for ways to spread her vibrant kindness – she earned the inaugural Breakthrough Miami and Miami Dolphins Jason Jenkins Community Service Award for it. But she also knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end.

Continue on p. 41.

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Photo by Greg Clark

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WORKING WITH YOUTH IS REALLY WHERE MY HEART IS. CHILDREN ARE JUST INCREDIBLE BEINGS, AND THEY’RE SO IMPRESSIONABLE. THEY REALLY DON’T HAVE A VIEW OF, OH, I REALLY CAN’T MAKE A DIFFERENCE. IT’S TOO LATE. Meredith Bass

Photo by Angel Parra

Blue Scholars Initiative

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built on renewable energy and are able to meet people’s basic needs, whether it be food or access to affordable housing so that we’re able to progress our society and not worry about the basics,” she says.

Speaking with Maurits Acosta, a high school sophomore, there is a feeling you are talking with a seasoned executive leader. Maurits runs his civic engagement nonprofit, Virtutem Populo, pushing young minds to take an active stance in their communities and get involved with local government.

Maurits Acosta (center-left) with high school activists at Constitution Day, Virtutem Populo's annual forum.

I have always been a good student. However, around 6th grade, I was struggling with certain aspects of my reading and math comprehension.

The psychoeducational evaluation revealed I have dyslexia, difficulty with reading or interpreting words, and dyscalculia, a learning disability in math. With the continued love and support of my family and friends, guidance from my mentors, I will not let these learning challenges limit my future achievements.

Jamora’s future looks bright. She hopes to combine her interests in the arts, the environment, and social justice with a degree program in sustainable design.

“I want to be able to create the cities of the future, whether it’s here on Earth or in outer space – entire communities that are

In the first emails we sent out to policymakers or professors at universities, we wouldn’t say our ages because we felt that might sway them from speaking with us.

In 2021, he championed new city ordinances with fellow Miami Lakes Middle School students after their school flooded. To succeed, the students’ appeals had to reach adults willing to listen. That’s what young activists need most.

“Let them into your office and meet with them,” Maurits states. “I know some adults who are hesitant or have a certain perception of the current generation. But I’ve realized that when we’re given an opportunity and a platform, the possibility of our impacts is limitless.”

Maurits is one of a broad population of kids whose education has been disrupted by extreme weather events. And according to a 2022 Government Accountability Office report, these incidents have long-standing consequences that disproportionately harm students already in socially vulnerable communities. It’s no wonder so many young activists focus on climate change. They feel its effects already.

Vision for a greener, healthier future is exactly what programs like Blue Scholars Initiative and Dream In Green hope to instill in more Miami-area students. These organizations also acknowledge that a connection with the environment is too often a privilege.

Environmental educator Meredith Bass has traveled worldwide on expedition cruises headed to diverse destinations from Antarctica to the South Pacific. But a desire to serve young people and help remove the barriers that block them from the water led her to Shake-A-Leg, a sailing and vocational training center for people with disabilities, and later, Blue Scholars Initiative.

On the water, online, and in classrooms, Blue Scholars Initiative shares Biscayne Bay’s beauty and significance with students across Miami-Dade County. Students learn about the plants and animals essential to the sparkling blue habitat and how humans can act against the harmful contributors threatening to dim it.

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We’re teaching not only to learn but also to be invested in it, Meredith says.

The same goes for Dream In Green, whose educational programs have reached more than 74,000 students in K-12 schools. They engage students in challenges to increase energy efficiency and reduce waste at school, deploy partnerships with Lady Green Recycling to empower schools to take recycling into their own hands, and award grants for student-led environmental initiatives.

Peace Corps alum and veteran educator Barbara MartinezGuerrero, now Dream In Green’s executive director, says their programs bring up important feelings in students. She says adults must balance the scary facts with the tangible change students can make:

When students speak, you hear that anger.

You hear that frustration. You hear that sense of my elders are failing me because they’re not acting now. It’s figuring out what a student feels passionate about and giving them the tools to know how to express that.

Young people across the country are stepping up to act for their passions. March for Our Lives, a student-led gun safety advocacy group created by survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, has helped register more than 50,000 new voters. United We Dream has connected thousands

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of immigrant youth in person and online as they advocate for greater protection. But all of this work is happening because young people face snowballing attacks on their freedoms.

For many Florida students, Governor DeSantis’s Individual Freedom Act restricts discussion of race and gender in curricula at their public universities and blocks federal & state funding for the diversity, equity, and inclusion programs they’ve never lived in a world without. The bill, seen by many as a regression to a deeply racist past, is precisely the kind of oppressive action that Miami advocacy organization Power U mobilizes Black and brown youth against. As the bill moved through the legislature, Power U and its alums organized protests with hundreds of other Florida students and answered questions from concerned students, parents, and citizens at a town hall meeting.

Through Power U, students are learning to organize and speak up against injustice in the community with people they’ve known for years and others they’ve just met. It’s a compelling collective skill, but it’s one the students don’t always see exemplified around them.

“Most people in my neighborhood, we don’t really talk to each other unless something has happened,” says high school senior and Power U leader Kassidey Antenor.

Power U’s students – and all of the young advocates we talked to – are working on the front lines of the battles against racism, hate, environmental destruction, and more. Facing frustrating, frightening issues, they share their passions with mature,

principled selflessness most adults can’t claim. But they also know their impacts aren’t only outward.

Kassidey knows how it feels to make real change. At a MiamiDade Public School board meeting, she and several other Power U students secured a decisive win for more equitable health textbooks. But her experiences with Power U, a group she joined after hearing their presentation in her fourth-period history class, have also changed her. She says she’ll be an advocate for life.

And, in part, it’s because adults in her life permitted her to explore. Kassidey could have been pigeonholed into one identity – an athlete, a smart kid, a troublemaker. But instead, she had the chance to experience a world where kids can make a change, and in it, she discovered something new.

I'VE LEARNED TO BE MORE MYSELF, TO

SPEAK OUT

LOUD. Kassidey Antenor

Photo by Greg Clark

Power U

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IN HER OWN LIGHT Virginia A. Jacko, a blind visionary and we can raise a new generation of kind, thoughtful, and empathetic people.

by Kacie Brown

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Photo by Greg Clark

CEO of Miami Lighthouse, speaks on how

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Photo by Greg Clark

I

put too much powder on my nose,” Virginia A. Jacko admits jokingly at the beginning of our interview. Before us is a graceful woman adorned with a pearl necklace, impeccable red manicure, flawlessly styled hair, and tastefully subtle makeup.

Dressed in a fashionable light gray jacket and glossy leather shoes, Virginia warmly takes our hands and welcomes us to Miami Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, a place where she sought assistance 17 years ago and moved more than 1,200 miles from Indiana to Florida. Now, she serves as a beacon of hope for countless of its visitors.

When Virginia started rapidly losing her sight to retinitis pigmentosa, a condition characterized by retinal damage, she was working as a chief finance executive at Purdue University.

She didn’t know anyone who was blind, and questions like How do you use a computer when you can no longer point and click?

How do you do your makeup? suddenly loomed over her. Her mom envisioned something more significant for her daughter: “I’m gonna pray you do big things for the blind.”

In the decades since, Virginia has led Miami Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the largest nonprofit in Florida for blind and visually-impaired people. And its programs, which range from music education to employment preparation, have earned

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the organization a place among the nation’s top 1%, according to Charity Navigator. One pair of glasses, one class session, one conversation at a time, they’re chipping away at the stigmas and challenges our societies have created for those who are visually impaired, a population that makes up almost 8% of the US. Virginia’s voice rings with pride as she details Miami Lighthouse’s work. And as she speaks, two ideas come up again and again: equality and ability.

A BLIND PERSON CAN DO ANYTHING A SIGHTED PERSON DOES, BUT THEY MIGHT DO IT A LITTLE DIFFERENTLY.

resulting behavior they see in these four-, five-, six-, and sevenyear-olds would be exemplary at any age.

We’re practicing inclusion, but it’s happening automatically at a very young age.

It’s not Hey Mom, I want to invite that blind kid over. It’s Hey Mom, I want to invite my friend Jose over.

That’s the kind of perspective Virginia says she wishes to see more of in adults and that so often, even well-meaning

Photo by Greg Clark

Miami Lighthouse isn’t just making sure kids have accommodations for their visual impairments. They’re cultivating a new generation of kind, thoughtful, empathetic people who are inclusive by nature. How? With the Miami Lighthouse Academy.

This school for students pre-kindergarten through second grade runs in partnership with Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Early Steps, and the Early Learning Coalition. Its classrooms are filled with children playing with blocks and learning to write their names. Some students wear colorful glasses and others don’t.

Half of these learners are visually impaired and half are typicallydeveloping. Virginia says this setup places all students in a powerful environment for social-emotional learning, and that the

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MORE THAN HALF OF WORKING-AGE PEOPLE WHO ARE BLIND OR VISUALLY IMPAIRED ARE NOT IN THE LABOR FORCE. — American Community Survey

people make harmful and unfounded assumptions about people who are blind.

I find it extremely annoying. So many corporations, they talk about DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), they talk about ESG (environmental, social, and governance).

But when it comes to employing people with a vision disability, they, for some reason, have a preconceived idea of what they cannot do. Blind people can be successful.

Blind people can be outstanding on the computer. They can live independently. They just need to have the skills.

Miami Lighthouse is a one-stop shop for life-changing tools and skills development. Their Vision Solution Center

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provides clients everything they may need, like non-smearing markers delivering more readable contrast for those with low vision to color-identifiers that help clients choose what they wear. Their computer training courses open doors to new opportunities for employment, communication, and connection. And their job-readiness classes don’t just help clients acquire menial positions – they help students develop plans toward fulfilling careers.

For many people with disabilities, life is about survival – making a living, filling prescriptions, getting to and from necessary appointments. But, as the US Surgeon General recently reported, everyone’s health, especially people with disabilities, depends on so much more. Human connection is essential to our well-being, and 1 in 2 American adults aren’t feeling it. Many assistance organizations don’t – or can’t – provide much beyond these basic needs. But the story is different at Miami Lighthouse.

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Photo by Greg Clark

Photo by Greg Clark

TIE UP LOOSE THREADS What story do your clothes tell? Rethink your fashion choices to preserve ancestral knowledge, lift your spirit, and regenerate the planet.

by Kacie Brown, Yulia Strokova

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Artwork by Diana Eusebio

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T

hree quarts of moss, a teaspoon and a half of alum, and a half teaspoon of cream of tartar. On the first day of class at her studio at Oolite Arts, Diana Eusebio passed down this recipe to her students, describing a ceremonial, multi-day process of ingredient melding. This recipe isn’t for food, though. It’s for a color: the perfect pineapple yellow.

Diana's creations drip poignant emotion, veiled by rich hues: fiery oranges, contemplative yellows, and earthy greens. She uses plants native to the “luscious environments” familiar to her ancestors – and still surround her today. Spiny achiote plants form a golden orange. Yellows come from pericón flowers. Deep purples and blues derived from indigo plants.

These colors that I'm working with in my art all symbolize the city, our environment, the plants that grow here.

Diana's homemade dyes color textiles from yarn to clothing, bridging her modern, Miami-born artistry with the traditions of her Dominican and Peruvian ancestors. While many indigenous artisans have shifted to synthetic and chemical dyes, succumbing to mass market demands for cheaper and faster production, Diana remains a torchbearer of this traditional knowledge, diligently preserving it and passing it on to others.

In Quechua and in the Andean regions, in historic times, there was no written language – not because of a lack of intelligence or a lack of understanding of communication – but because communication simply occurred differently. It happened through textiles.

So the colors on the fabrics that were woven in, the types of fiber that were used, or even the knots that were made in thread told a story that could be interpreted by different people in the region.

Diana’s study of Latin American textile art — a medium she says was never colonized — and her natural dyeing workshops reconnect her with the land and indigenous knowledge; they also heightened her awareness about what the textiles she uses in daily life communicate for better or worse.

It makes you think, maybe I shouldn't take it for granted. Maybe it's something that I should pay a little bit more attention to. We look at the ingredients on the back of foods that we consume, but we forget that fabric is one of the basic necessities in life and something that we kind of consume through our skin.

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WHAT COLORS CAN WE MAKE FROM MIAMI'S ENVIRONMENT?

Artwork by Diana Eusebio

Diana Eusebio Artist

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Photo Courtesy of Diana Eusebio

EVERY PORE ON YOUR BODY IS EATING EVERY ITEM OF CLOTHING YOU'RE WEARING. Taryn Hipwell Eco-fashion Consultant

As she teaches students about textiles and dyes, Diana also opens others’ eyes to the impact that we overlook in our everyday fashion choices.

And generally, it’s not healthy food. A recent study conducted by the environmental health research group Silent Spring Institute and published in the Environmental Science and Technology journal showed that nearly 60% of tested children’s textiles labeled “waterproof,” “stainresistant,” or “environmentally friendly” contained toxic PFAS known as “forever chemicals” due to their persistence in the environment and association with increased risks of reproductive disorders, cancers, and more.

Taryn’s always been interested in fashion. She went to design school, but her first job at a fashion house changed her career trajectory. She was suddenly plagued by hives and migraines, only to discover regular use of chemicals like formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, in the company’s clothes. Educating consumers and clothing brands about healthy fashion became her life’s work.

Taryn has partnered with TEDxLA, collaborated with clothing brands, and worked with fashion students at major

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universities to increase awareness around toxicity in clothing and propose healthy solutions. Still, she acknowledges that shopping for healthier clothing can be overwhelming.

Her book, How to Shop for Shi(f)t, is a practical guide to non-toxic clothing shopping, from reading brands’ impact reports to watching out for key ingredients and greenwashing. Clothing made from recycled plastics, for example, contains microplastics that are still harmful to humans and the environment, she cautions.

People’s demand for transparency from companies is really going to shift how clothes are shared. It's the designer’s responsibility now to really start getting stricter on fibers and fabrics.

Photo by Ferhat Turan

Though fashion practices worldwide leave many concerns and frustrations, Taryn’s practices are solutionbased. She gets excited about innovative, stylish brands and has hope for the future of her industry.

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Taryn is a member of Mana Fashion Services, a fastgrowing Miami-based hub for ethical creators making an enduring impact on the fashion scene. Launched in April 2022, the place immediately became a vibrant, inclusive fashion center where “looking beyond the label” is the norm.

“Our focus is to nurture and empower a fashion community that prioritizes sustainability, technology, and entrepreneurship. Since our inception, we've been dedicated to supporting small businesses through a range of fashion community-building initiatives. We're actively organizing curated pop-up bazaars, showcasing ethical vendors from South Florida and Latin America, hosting numerous industry happy hours for facilitating both online and offline networking, educational workshops, and more,” Mana Fashion Services creative director Aleksandra Sivokoneva says.

Fashion gives us a lot to think about: the stories we’re choosing to tell and the safety of the materials we’re laying against our skin. But as Mana Fashion Services’ initiatives exemplify, our considerations must extend beyond ourselves, too.

According to Environmental Protection Agency research, the world produced approximately 17 million tons of textiles in 2018. Yet production far exceeds true need. A total of 11.3 million tons of textiles ended up in landfills that year. We wear clothes to protect ourselves from our environment. Now it’s time to protect our environment from our clothes.

The Miami-based Upcycle Project successfully transforms textile waste into valuable raw materials and helps designers source sustainable fabrics.

IMAGINE A WORLD WHERE EVERY STITCH & SEAM TELLS A STORY OF TRANSFORMATION. OUR GOAL IS SIMPLE YET AMBITIOUS: RAISE AWARENESS OF THE WASTE CREATED BY THE FASHION INDUSTRY. Gabriella Smith UpCycle Project

Gabriella mentors design students on fashion sustainability and encourages them to create upcycled designs with materials that would otherwise be discarded. Forgotten dry cleaner pieces, used sheets and napkins from hotels, damaged beach towels, preowned denim, and discarded school uniforms. Through a creative circular approach, these unwanted textiles don’t take up permanent residence in a landfill but transform into fashionable pieces.

WITH ONE PROGRAM – REPURPOSING DAMAGED BEACH TOWELS – SOHO BEACH HOUSE SAVED 3M LITERS OF WATER, REDUCED CO2 EMISSIONS, AND DIVERTED 1,000 POUNDS OF TEXTILE WASTE FROM FLORIDA LANDFILLS. — UpCycle Project

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Photo Courtesy of The Upcycle Project

hunger for newness by cultivating creative designs with what’s already out there. Our mission is to bring creativity, circularity, and innovation to the waste created by humanity so that we can continue to live on Earth longer. And have fun with fashion while we’re at it.

Taylor Bloom, the Miami-based founder of The Rescue Collection, is also excited to give a second life to pieces at risk of being discarded. You can often meet her at the Little River Flea market.

Taylor hasn’t always been an environmentalist, but she can pinpoint what changed her perspective: The True Cost, a documentary on the fashion industry’s impacts on the environment and its lowest-paid workers.

Photos Courtesy of The Upcycle Project

We believe we have enough to satiate our

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“I could feel a physical impact. It was like a shock going through my body of Oh my gosh, what have I been a part of?”

Over the next few years, she quit her corporate job and ended up in Miami, where she reignited her interest in fashion’s creative possibilities with a newfound purpose. She started her own company, which sells trendy, stylish, but one-of-a-kind clothing items she repurposes herself. Taylor says moving away from the steady salary and rigid schedule of the corporate world to a creative life of Goodwill shopping and weekend markets was scary and even a bit isolating at first. But now, sharing in a community of advocacy and producing products she knows are doing good, she feels more fulfilled than ever.

“When you first put your voice out there, and you talk about how you really feel, you start to open up the door and the opportunity for other people to come in,” Taylor says. “And then you realize you're not in this alone. There are a ton of people who really care.”

Plastic is one of Taylor’s biggest concerns, and for good reason.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, plastics comprise approximately 60% of all materials sourced for clothing production, which includes polyester, acrylic, and nylon textiles. These synthetic fabrics are lightweight, durable, affordable and flexible. But here’s the catch: every time they're washed, they shed tiny plastic fibers called microfibers, a form of microplastics up to five millimeters in size. Scientists estimate that textiles produce 35% of the microplastic pollution in the world’s oceans, making them the most significant known source of marine microplastic pollution.

Taylor argues that this overwhelming industry practice isn’t just bad for the environment — it’s bad for our souls.

Polyester, nylon, and spandex are all synthetic materials. Essentially, you're wearing plastic, which actually has a very low vibration, while natural materials like hemp, cotton, and linen have a higher vibration. So, by choosing what you put on your body, you can literally raise your vibration. Ironically, many yoga clothes — where we often discuss these significant spiritual principles — are often contributing to environmental destruction.

Like Diana and Taryn, Taylor says our power as consumers is in our choices, and from her one-of-a-kind dresses to her signature “fuck plastic” shirts, she’s creating fertile ground for better choices.

THAT DOLLAR IS VOTING FOR THE KIND OF WORLD YOU WANT TO SEE. THAT MONEY IS LENDING MOMENTUM TO SOMETHING. LIKE I ALWAYS SAY, WHERE ARE YOUR VALUES? DOES THIS PIECE OF CLOTHING REFLECT WHO YOU ARE AND WHO YOU WANT TO BE? 6 0 | I MPAC T .E D IT IO N

Taylor Bloom The Rescue Collection

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Photo Courtesy of Armour Dance

YES,

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YOU CAN From The Nutcracker to Busy Bees to Piano Slam to WOW’s Hu(e)mans, Miami’s educators transform kids’ lives through arts and culture experiences and grow happier and healthier communities.

by Kacie Brown, Yulia Strokova, & Samantha Schalit

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C

amila Gil moved with her mom to Miami from Bogota, Colombia, when she was 11. A lot had changed, but one thing remained constant: her deep passion for dance. Finding the perfect dance school in their new city was not easy, but when they finally discovered the right one, it stuck.

Camila is still at Armour Dance Theatre every day, but now, as its executive director. She speaks with humble respect as she details its 75-year history. The theatre’s founder, Thomas Armour, was a famous ballet dancer whose performance career ended with his World War II military service. After the war, Armour returned to his South Florida home to run a small ballet school. At its start, Armour’s school, then called the Miami Ballet, immersed aspiring dancers in productions of full-scale ballets.

But Ruth Wiesen, a ballet student and trained nurse who began teaching at the school, made it into the inclusive, communityfocused powerhouse for transformation that it is today.

“One day, Ruth took a lecture demonstration to a Liberty City school in Miami,” Camila says. "As the girls were up on stage, one little girl came up to her and said, I would love to do ballet, but I can't; I don't look like that. And Ruth responded, Yes, you can.”

“That opened up the world for Ruth,” Camila continues. "She knew that there was so much potential to use the art of dance to transform children's lives and to make dance accessible to all children, regardless of income, race, ethnicity, gender, identity, ability, body type, and so much more.”

WE USE THE ART OF DANCE TO TRANSFORM CHILDREN'S LIVES & I'M ONE OF THOSE CHILDREN. Camila Gil Armour Dance Theatre

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Ruth’s vision echoes through Armour Dance Theatre’s productions, especially their annual performances of The Nutcracker. They’re ditching the petite, all-white casts, the stuffiness, and the expensive tickets, instead opting for something more inclusive, engaging, and accessible – a performance that leaves young audience members thinking, I can do ballet.

Our Nutcracker is the most diverse here in Miami. We have children from all across the community and all sorts of backgrounds.

We also do sensory-friendly performances to ensure children with high sensitivities to things like light and audio, and those on the autism spectrum, are able to watch from the audience, feel comfortable, and enjoy the experience of a dance performance.

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Photo Courtesy of Armour Dance

OUR NUTCRACKER IS THE MOST DIVERSE HERE IN MIAMI.

As Camila mentions Armour Dance Theatre students’ evolutions — a shy six-year-old from Little Haiti turned NYU graduate, a student struggling with expression now sharing her story as a TODAY Show contributor — it’s clear that Armour Dance Theatre’s work is about more than organized movements of the body. It’s about using dance education to provide young people with the comprehensive support, mentorship, care, and motivation that give them space to dream and achieve those dreams.

Guitars Over Guns transforms kids' lives with the power of music. Armed with backgrounds as professional musicians and training in social-emotional learning and traumainformed care, Guitars Over Guns mentors teach students to sing, play instruments, compose, produce music, and more.

“We've watched kids teach each other how to read,” Guitars Over Guns founder Chad Bernstein says. “We've watched kids unpack trauma and deal with it and support each other through it. We’ve watched kids break social strata.”

Rody Kenzy Lafrance was one of those kids. He grew up in Miami, influenced by a rich melodic mixture of pop, 90s R&B, and the Compás music his parents brought from their home in Haiti. A middle school class with Guitars Over Guns connected him with his instrument of choice and a network of support and opportunity that’s both musical and personal.

It led him to become a mentor himself, perform on the TEDxYouth@Miami stage, and train as an advocate through The Peace Studio’s Artist as Catalyst program. But it also instilled deep values.

I believe in self-love and self-awareness and the fact that we all have a voice. We're all waiting for somebody to just listen to our story.

“When they were clapping, I was just nodding. I was taking it all in. And I think from then on, I realized that if I could make people feel what they did at that moment, then maybe music was something that I should pursue,” he says.

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Photo Courtesy of Armour Dance

Performing onstage hasn’t always been easy for Rody.

He comes across as humble and introspective – not the kind of guy you’d imagine relishing the spotlight. But on the night of his first public performance, as he watched the audience’s peaceful gaze as he strummed, Rody knew he’d found his purpose.

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Photo by Fookloy Ford

WE'RE ALL WAITING FOR SOMEBODY TO JUST LISTEN TO OUR STORY, I WONDER HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE A MENTOR IN THEIR LIVES WHO IS ABLE TO BE THAT OTHER VOICE WHEN NOBODY ELSE IS THERE. Rody Lafrance Musician

Arts For Learning is helping students find their voices through interdisciplinary programs. With what executive director Sheila Womble describes as a “continuum of care,” they serve students ranging from infants to 18-year-olds through a wide range of hands-on classes. Their goal isn’t to produce museum-worthy art, it’s to cultivate expression.

Art is not just a practice; it's also about what you’re trying to communicate, Sheila emphasizes, sharing that sometimes, Arts for Learning students’ communication breakthroughs are as monumental as speaking their first words.

“They get so emotionally invested in the work, and they're excited to be around the artists, and they realize they have something to say. This may be the first time they're given an opportunity to use the language of arts to try to communicate something, and they realize Maybe I can also try to vocalize as well.”

Sheila doesn’t hesitate to give teachers credit for Arts For Learning’s inclusive environments, which “give kids safe room to be vulnerable.” She says her own teachers — the especially creative ones — led her to a career in the arts.

Oftentimes, it is by chance that you just happen to have that really awesome creative teacher. And so we wanted to give as many children as possible that chance to create and connect their learning to their creativity.

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Hu(e)mans of Miami, the collaborative project presented by the WOW Center at Miami’s Coral Gables Museum, is another example of a colorful, inclusive environment. In celebration of Autism Acceptance Month, the exhibition featured the original artwork of neurodivergent artist Thalya Baker, as well as the work of seven local schools.

ARTLOOK MIAMI

®

Photo by Greg Clark

BRINGING THE POWER OF THE ARTS TO ALL YOUTH IN MIAMI

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Photo by Alex Markow

“We want to talk about the quality of life and how to live with one another,” explains Gianna Riccardi, director of education and public programs at Coral Gables Museum. As a trained art therapist, she emphasizes the importance of learning how to embrace our commonalities and celebrate differences.

“A hue is a point on a spectrum of color — every color melts into the other to create the next hue. 'Hu(e)man' comes from the belief that regardless of the color of your skin, your age, your gender, your disABILITY — we are all more alike than different, we are hu(e)man,” the curators messaged to the community.

Building communication skills — teaching young people how to speak up for themselves and others — is a valuable step toward instilling a spirit of advocacy. But to become advocates, kids must also see that they can make a difference.

That’s what inspired playwright Ashlee K. Thomas to create The Busy Bees’ Great Adventure, an environmental conservationfocused musical developed and commissioned by the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in partnership with MiamiDade County Public Schools.

“Ashlee was isolated during the pandemic. She was seeing all of these things change in the crazy world, and she felt helpless, like, What can I do about this?” the show’s director, actor, and educator Tanisha Cidel, says.

Ashlee certainly did something — and she’s showing 30,000 students that they can, too. This year, MDCPS elementary

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students across the county can see The Busy Bees’ Great Adventure for free and learn more about the environment with an accompanying in-classroom curriculum.

The Arsht Center offers signature education programs and free arts opportunities to more than 80,000 South Florida students annually. For most students, this is their first live theater experience at their local performing arts center.

Everything, including transportation to the Arsht Center, is provided free to schools and students through the generosity of Arsht Center supporters.

The entire experience shows students the power their voices and actions hold. In May, student representatives from every district helped workshop the musical and their feedback will be incorporated into the final production. The companion curriculum isn’t just about climate change; broadly, it’s about the issues directly impacting South Florida students and the actions they can take now to help.

The Busy Bees team is exemplifying advocacy in less obvious ways, too. The musical’s cast hails entirely from Miami, and its musical numbers draw from popular and regional styles.

The team designed the production specifically with Miami students in mind.

They're just a little bit more connected to it when you broaden the horizons and allow all kinds of people to be seen on the stage.

Tanisha and the Arsht Center have collaborated on many programs, including the Dranoff International 2 Piano Foundation's Piano Slam.

Piano Slam is a creative writing project and scholarship competition not only for language arts curricula but also for science, technology, engineering, and math. It successfully integrates the arts into Miami-Dade County's middle and high school classrooms, presenting live concerts and spoken word poetry.

Since 2009, the Dranoff Foundation has engaged over 109,000 teens and given them a chance to experience the power of collaborative, interdisciplinary creativity and problemsolving firsthand.

The program culminates in a 'classical, hip-hop, spoken word mashup' featuring music ranging from J.S. Bach to Dua Lipa and finalists' performances of their poems.

The latest Piano Slam invited students to craft original poems on "Hot Music. Hot Miami" focused on heat resilience and protecting the lives of the most heat-vulnerable communities.

Carlene Sawyer Executive Director, Dranoff International 2 Piano Foundation

"One of the topics we discussed was shade trees and how they provide relief from the heat in Dade. We collaborated with the FIU Department of Environment and Earth Science, which helped us monitor hotspots and cooler areas outside. As a result, we planted trees in local schools, and the students wrote about this initiative."

Piano Slam is a truly "rewarding experience" for all. It's a celebration of humanity and a testimonial of our potential to transform our communities and ourselves.

"You not only saw students from middle or high school but also some students with disabilities. And you also saw some incarcerated students who came from a locked facility to participate on the stage that night. And we've been doing that for about five years," Carlene adds.

Photo by Alex Markow

Most students' poems were about trees, still the most effective 'technology' to guard against city heat. Miami-Dade County offers homeowners free trees through a unique Adopt-a-Tree program. Over 225,000 trees have been given away since 2001.

Music is an open door. FIU did a three-year university study of Piano Slam. And what they found was that kids felt more confident in the information they were learning. They felt more disciplined in their work. They felt more hopeful about their experience in school.

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RHYTHM OF THE WORLD Caitlin Savage, 10th Grade Coral Gables Senior | STEM During the day she sings.

You can hear her from the highest mountain top, From the lowest valley.

Her voice is strong and stern.

Powerful enough to flow throughout the planet, To reach every being, Down to every lion and to every ant.

She is mighty with her song.

The song that flows with her rhythm, The powerful beat of her heart.

Molten pumps erupting from her core, Bubbles of passion marking the surface.

The whistle of her winds, The way they chime through the lush flora And the singing from the birds, Their intricate acoustics waking up the world.

But when the sun sets and the world is asleep, If you listen closely, you can hear her cry A cry from holding all the secrets she can't conceal From singing her song with a cutthroat Only few will notice the change in the wind The way it sings to a different tune, Almost as if its choking on the words, The words we all struggle to say.

The stark contrast between night and day, We must rise up and acknowledge, The unevenness of light and shade.

How it hurts her; she can't conceal this pain forever.

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Piano Slam 2023 | Photo by Alex Markow

The secrets we're afraid to admit.

They sadden her, and she grieves quietly.

But if no one hears her when she cries, Does that mean there's nothing wrong?

ACCESS IS IMPORTANT. BUT BELONGING IS WHAT PEOPLE NEED TO FEEL TO START TO BE ACTIVE IN THEIR COMMUNITY. Carlene Sawyer Dranoff International 2 Piano Foundation

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DEMOCRACY IS RIGHT HERE While the Florida legislature's laws risk dismantling the tools we use to share our stories, those who work to maintain a state of our shared humanity. It all begins in 'third places,' where Miami's homegrown leaders empower communities to bring about changes that we can witness, feel, and embrace.

by Patrick McCaslin, Samantha Schalit

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Photo by Melody Timothee

storytellers keep alight the spark that awakens

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It's not in D.C. It's not in Tallahassee; it's in City Hall and police stations. That's where we engage democracy…Democracy is not over there; democracy is right here," emphasizes CarlPhillippe Juste.

Carl has been a senior Miami Herald photojournalist for over 30 years. He's also the voluntary executive director of the Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance and cofounder of his own third place, Iris Photocollective.

His projects begin with an idea, a moment in time, or a place, and tell human stories deeply rooted in our shared humanity, authenticity, and courage.

Whether his subject is a homeless person, politician, or Caribbean worker, Carl’s photos are clarion calls that speak to your soul, and memory, and may even challenge you.

THIS IS THE AGE OF THE BRAVE. AND IF YOU CHOOSE NOT TO BE BRAVE, THEN DO NOT COMPLAIN. IF WE DON'T UNDERSTAND THE GRAVITY OF THAT CALL, THEN WE DON'T DESERVE DEMOCRACY.

“I have a contemporary art form, but that present expression leans very heavily on the past, and it whispers to the future. The images that I create become mirrors. I say, if you're offended by an image, ask yourself, why? What is it that disturbs you? If you’re moved by an image, ask yourself, why?”

“Images in all art forms: spoken word, action, protests, visual art, performance art are a constant reminder that we have work to do.

This is what democracy is about,” Carl said.

Interacting with photography and art encourages others to join and creates an idea exchange. When we turn to the person next to us or send the image to our friend, we amplify it, deriving even more value. The same holds true for books, films, and philosophies.

Our community is ripe for this exchange.

Green Space Miami at 7200 Biscayne Boulevard serves as that unique 'third place' where meaningful exchange consistently occurs to amplify the stories, ideas, and artwork of emerging creators from diverse cultural backgrounds.

This is where Aurora Colindres, founder of Power for Good Consulting, hosted and moderated a panel discussion, Tracing The Lines. Here, Andrea Mercado, executive director of Florida Rising and practiced activist for racial, gender, and economic equity; DePaul Vera, a Miami Beach-based artist; and Carl began to tie together the roles democracy, collective & individual empowerment, and idea exchange play in our lives.

Photo by Melody Timothee

And when we notice these gut reactions in others, we can prompt them with these simple questions. These second takes help push ourselves and our peers beyond the short-

sightedness of a first impression.

Today, when images and videos move so quickly past our eyes, we have a greater imperative to stop and question.

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The march is the way you treat the woman that works at Publix who has four or five jobs and is trying to put her kids through school; that’s the march.

“When you march to the ballot, when you march to church, when you march your neighbor to the store, when you give company to those who are homeless, that is the march!” Carl said.

“It's really a labor of love,” Andrea said. “It's like putting one foot in front of the other every single day, and knowing that we’re carrying legacies of freedom fighters forward. And we might not win today or tomorrow, but it’s that insistence on our dignity and humanity.

“We have built enough power to insist that our lives are worthy, that our communities deserve respect, deserve investment, deserve infrastructure, deserve the freedom to thrive,” Andrea continued. Still, the work endures, “How are we building power for Black communities? How are we building power for Latino communities? How are we building power for immigrant communities?”

“Miami has embraced me and my work in ways that have been beyond beneficial, especially coming from Kentucky. I've never felt support from the community as much as Miami,” DePaul said. “It’s a certain sense of community that I've never been able to grasp until I moved here five years ago.”

“What does it look like for us to come together and celebrate our community, celebrate our resistance, and actually take action together toward the future that we want for ourselves, for our children, for their children, and the generations to come?”

Andrea said.

What is it that pulls you? Give into that in whatever small way that you can.

Aurora Colindres Founder of Power for Good Consulting

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Photo by Melody Timothee

Artwork by Enma Saiz

When we support other people purely because they’re human, too, our empathy will come through in the ballot box, in our endeavors, and in what we diffuse into our communities.

art events, the vehicles that allow us to tap into our shared humanity. Libraries are among the last places that offer these opportunities free to the public.

AT THE LIBRARY Engage Miami, a nonprofit that guides young people in civic engagement, holds workshops at Miami-Dade libraries, teaching the public how the county budgeting process and local government structures work: everything they need to know to advocate effectively. Information empowers people to become involved; this is where storytelling launches tangible agenda items and legislation.

We're really looking at our libraries as community hubs that provide so many incredible services and can do so much more as well,

Their Reimagining Libraries initiative centralizes this mission.

These public institutions have long hosted after-school teens, stored stories past & present, and provided free local resources like museum passes; and Miami-Dade libraries stepped up in major ways during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Engage Miami is pushing the community to imagine what more our libraries could do.

Many libraries function as early voting sites, Yanelis also noted, so making sure libraries expand as spaces for civic expression for young people can also help turn young voters out in local elections.

Yanelis told Teen Vogue. She says the goal is to “imagine a world in which we want to live and what kind of resources should exist, and how libraries can be a microcosm of that.”

“The idea is to build out this vision together,” said Yanelis Valdes, director of organizing and advocacy at Engage Miami.

ON THE ROAD “Most major social changes have come from young people, college students. You guys are the ones that drive the ship, believe it or not,” reaffirmed Dr. Marvin Dunn, educator, activist, and founder of the Miami Center for Racial Justice.

Insights from their survey and series of town hall events reveal community members want to experience more culture and

As a historian of the Black experience in South Florida and with a doctorate in psychology, he exemplifies his words through his

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Photo by Melody Timothee

The Story of My Beds Miami Chapter (July 2019 – October 2023)

by Gabriela Chérrez

MY CONCERN IS NOT JUST THAT BLACK STUDENTS WON'T KNOW THEIR HISTORY, BUT THAT AMERICAN STUDENTS WON’T KNOW OUR HISTORY.

extensive work in disseminating stories across the county. Dr. Dunn has organized a book drive to place more banned books in the hands of Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs), giving them back their power of choice.

“Most people, white, Black, republicans, democrats don't want the state telling universities what they can and cannot teach,” Dr. Dunn said. “It’s essentially un-American.”

His Teach the Truth tour visits sites, like Rosewood, once characterized by Black prosperity, then racial violence. The displacement of Black people from the area does not eradicate Rosewood's Black history, and Dr. Dunn’s not only preserving these stories, he’s preserving places. He purchased five acres of Rosewood and is transforming it into a historic park.

Teach the Truth traverses Florida and continually adds new site visits, like Ocoee, Newberry, Live Oak, and Lake City. All tours are offered free of charge to students, their parents, and teachers.

At some locations, people join hands and pray, especially at mass graves. These profoundly human experiences create a bond within a group previously made up of strangers.

Such stories could be wiped from Florida’s history books under the recent education laws where lessons related to race, racism, or sexuality must be taught in “an objective manner” and must

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DISplace Is a call to action on the plague of the DISfunctional, DISruptive, DISrespectful, and DISgusting politics DIStributed across THIS city.

DISplace is a scream.

DISplace is not another casual conversation about who’s right and who’s wrong.

THIS is ALL wrong.

DISplace is a scream into the ears of the greedy.

THIS is about the DISregard of human rights.

DIS is about DIScrimination, environmental racism, gentrification, and revealing the DISloyalty of a system built to protect.

THIS is about Scott Projects.

THIS is about NW 3RD AVE AND 62ND. THIS is about the GROVE. THIS is about Colored town to Overtown to NO MORE. THIS is about the walls put up in place of peace.

DISgrace!

THIS is about citywide DISaggregation

DISassociation

and a venal state.

THIS place is home to Bahamian descendents.

THIS is the resting place of Tequesta bones.

THIS place is safe haven to the immigrant the asylum seekers the migrant and the refugee This is a call to action Tell them WE ARE HERE And we will not be DISMEMBERED, DISCONTINUED, or DISCREDITED. THIS CITY IS MAGIC BECAUSE OF THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE, DANCE, CREATE, LOVE, AND The Memory That Transforms into a Place

by Carolina Cueva

BUILD HERE AND WE WILL NOT BE

By Arsimmer McCoy

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DISPLACED

IT'S UP TO THOSE OF US WHO ARE LESS VULNERABLE TO BE THE ONES LEADING THIS CAUSE. not persuade students to a particular point of view, or make them uncomfortable.

With such stakes, it can be easy to put more pressure on the front lines: teachers, professors, and administrators.

Yet, those on the front lines are already suffering the consequences of this wave of censorship.

Photo by Melody Timothee

Dealing with the reality that educators and librarians could be penalized by state laws, districts are now restricting access to certain books. According to the latest report released by literary nonprofit PEN America, Florida surpassed Texas as the state with the most books pulled from shelves in public schools in the 2022-2023 school year: 1,406 cases were registered.

When confronted with injustice, individuals who aren't directly affected have a special chance to support those — such as public school and university professionals — who risk losing their jobs if they speak out.

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TURN THE PAGE TO FREADOM Storytellers & booksellers don’t just stock libraries and bookstores. Leaders like Mitchell Kaplan, founder of Books & Books, animate these spaces with the exchange of ideas that to empathy, and brave enough to be engaged community members.

by Samantha Schalit

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Photo by Greg Clark

makes people more open to diversity, prone

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W

hen Mitchell Kaplan calls, Miami answers. Despite only a few days' notice, a hundred people packed into the Coral Gables Congregational Church meeting room. Educators, business owners, a poet laureate, parents, librarians, the very young and much older rallied behind a shared value inherent to democracy – freedom. In this case, freadom.

In the crowded room, among the knees and shins of standing adults, children sat on the floor immersed in their books – including The ABCs of Black History by Rio Cortez, Love to Langston

by Tony Medina, and The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman.

Community leaders and literary advocates like Dr. Marvin Dunn of Miami Center for Racial Justice each took the stage to read from these three books challenged within the Miami-Dade County Public School system. Standing there, the energy for resistance was a mix of outrage, hope and, perhaps, relief that there were others who agreed politics were getting in the way of students’ education.

As Mitchell tells it, after growing up in Miami, he never thought he’d come back. Today, he’s responsible for one of the most successful independent bookstores in town. He’s become an expert at building community spaces where art and culture thrive, where it’s safe to explore what it means to be human (and how to be a better one). Inspired by famed bookstores of the past, Mitchell tells us how bookstores have been caught in the crossfire of culture wars before, and they’re the perfect place for people to create community that’s comfortable with diversity.

Samantha: When you founded Books & Books in 1982, what was your vision for the store? What is your vision for the future?

The 20th century was a standout period for activism through literature and within the spaces inhabited by lovers of art, culture and story. Shakespeare and Company — an English-language bookstore in Paris founded in 1919 by American Sylvia Beach — attracted the greatest writers of the Lost Generation era. Serving as store & library, it became a home for writers and a source of new literature. Sylvia published James Joyce’s Ulysses when no one else dared, and in 1941, when Nazis demanded Sylvia rid the store of particular titles, she refused. Resistance came at the cost of her store, but before the Nazis could confiscate her inventory, she hid the store’s books and belongings in an upstairs apartment.

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Photo by Sofia Hidalgo

Mitchell: I ended back up in Miami, kind of in between what I thought I was going to do…at the time, Miami was a very bleak place; it was not a place for anyone in their 20s to want to stay.

So, for me, a lot of the early impetus of what I wanted for Books & Books was that I wanted to help create a community that I want to stay in, that I would want to continue living in. And bookstores were always kind of a place that I loved being in, that I thought could create a great sense of community. What I had started with was a sense of bookstore history, you might say, by learning literary history.

Gotham Book Mart in Midtown Manhattan was one of the most iconic American bookstores and served as a meeting place for the James Joyce Society and Finnegans Wake Society. While it was open between 1920 and 2006, it housed thousands of wide-ranging genres, including rare poetry chapbooks, contemporary literature, and periodicals. Its leaders fought the great First Amendment fights, bringing in DH Lawrence and Henry Miller, walking up to the frontlines of the censorship battles. City Lights, in San Francisco, was the great store on the West Coast that started publishing writers, amplifying previously unrepresented voices.

Mitchell continues: So, all of that was in my mind: that there were these bookstores that were community centers that were places where people could come and meet. I took this road lesstraveled of community-building while at the same time being very selfish, doing it for myself; I wanted a community that I could feel very close to. And the fact of the matter is, when we opened our doors in those early days, the community came. We started holding poetry readings. I brought books to every literary event that I could find. And then

we had authors coming in, so that sense of community is part of our DNA. That is why we started: because we wanted to be able to reflect what a community space can do.

When I think about where we are today, I think, wow, it's been 40 years, and how lucky I have actually been, in my own city that I grew up in, I've been able to watch a city remake itself over the last 40 years…Miami has always been a microcosm of what the future holds for the rest of America. So, having a seat at that table, it was amazing, and being able to do things in my own small way, like help start the Miami Book Fair, foster young writers who are now older writers…I don't know that I planned all of this out. I think I just let everything unfold, which is what usually happens, and that as things have unfolded, I then saw things reveal themselves.

With the Books & Books Literary Foundation, we're going to be able to take all the good work we do, and we're going to be able to expand on that by asking the community to step up and help support us through the Literary Foundation. Developing the next generation of readers is one of the biggest goals that I have.

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Photo by Greg Clark 8 6 | I MPAC T .E D IT IO N

I want to get more authors into the schools; I want to get more books in school and get them to students if they can’t afford them. For me, it’s the way to take the legacy of Books & Books and move it forward.

Samantha: What do you believe the role of independent bookstores is within local communities?

Mitchell: I like to think of a bookstore, and the Book Fair, as a big tent where the whole community is welcome. By coming into that big tent, that bookstore, the community understands one another better. One of the things that's lost in our world today is the whole notion of empathy. A bookstore can help generate empathy like nothing else. Because a good book is an empathy machine when you really think about it. A book helps open your eyes to other people's lives, whether it's nonfiction or fiction. It's why I read fiction: to learn other people's lives, to understand what they went through, what their realities are like because none of us really understand anyone's reality very close to the bone.

ONE OF THE THINGS THAT'S LOST IN OUR WORLD TODAY IS THE WHOLE NOTION OF EMPATHY. A BOOKSTORE CAN HELP GENERATE EMPATHY LIKE NOTHING ELSE. At the same time, independent bookstores, I think, help save democracy, or help promulgate democracy. What I give you is a selection of books to create that big tent based on our community, a diversity of voices that are tailored toward a community. That's how I visualize the indie bookstore. There are basically four ways that any bookstore can really distinguish itself: Ambiance (what the bookstore is like, what it feels like to be there); the staff, the booksellers and people who are there, they make up the bookstore; book selection — what your selection of books are; and the fourth is interaction with the community. Those things make a great bookstore. You know it when you feel it.

Samantha: As you provide a platform for community values, how do you tie that to why an open choice of books is so important?

Mitchell: The overall goal is to create a big tent under which the whole community feels welcome; the other way you can do that is by allowing a diversity of books to be in your bookstore.

And those books have to be selected by us and they cannot be determined by the government — that’s a nonstarter.

Particularly in a place like Miami where you've got people who've come from fascist countries, we just can't allow our government to basically control anything that we carry. It has to be the individual’s choice. If you're a minor, it has to be a cochoice with your parent. It cannot be a choice that the state begs for you. That is basically censorship.

Dictatorship happens in the dark. It happens when we're not looking and when we're not permitted to understand what's happening…So the only way you can truly serve your community, is by being an independent voice and having a free voice, otherwise we’re all sunk.

People get confused with the idea of censorship. They sometimes think that you walk into a bookstore, and if I don't carry something, they go, Oh, you're censoring that book? Well, no, I have the right to select what I want to carry…there's some bookstores that are political bookstores, some that only carry children's books. We're a generalist’s bookshop, so we carry whatever is interesting to us, but we're certainly not censoring.

You still have the right to get whatever it is you want to get. And we'll order anything for you as well.

Samantha: What advice would you give to community members outside the public school circle who want to create wider learning opportunities for students and/or make state-banned books available to them?

Mitchell: Vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, change the narrative, and show up at school board meetings. Don't let the Moms for Liberty be the only voice that is being heard. The next battle is a local battle; school board elections are really, really important.

Volunteer at schools wherever you can, and volunteer out of school; there are some really wonderful programs that happen in this county. You know, the Children's Trust is doing some great things, the Miami Book Fair, we prepared some terrific children's stuff. But I would say politically, get politically active, and right now, we're at a break-the-glass moment in politics.

For a community that’s longing to move on from this chapter of leadership driven by a phobia of differing identities, Mitchell reminds us the next page we turn to is blank for us to write on.

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IT'S TOO REAL TO BE MYTH If you know, you know, and if you don't know, sure you do: Miami is as beautiful as its deep need for improvement. It's up to us to choose what character we want to play in its story.

by Patrick McCaslin, Samantha Schalit

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Photo by Sofia Hidalgo

Andrew Otazo, writer and eco-activist, will make

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A

ndrew Otazo is that guy who removed tons of trash from Miami’s mangroves. Sometimes solo, sometimes with volunteers, Andrew has attracted county-wide attention for his stubborn determination to rid these guardians of the coast from debris. Described by Local 10 News as a "Sisyphean" task, his staunch defense of Miami’s natural ecosystem alludes to the mythological Greek king condemned to push a boulder up a hill eternally.

But unlike Sisyphus, Andrew has achieved better results by raising wide-reaching awareness of the mangrove roots’ superpower and the importance of cleaning the waterways for its restoration.

“I’m an optimistic person. Otherwise, I wouldn't have picked up 23,000 pounds of trash. If I had been infuriated by every pound of trash, I would have had a heart attack and died in the mangroves, and that would have been the end of me,” Andrew quips.

His satire is as epic as his cleanups, engaging thousands of online followers with his tersely cogent newsletter, short essays, stories, and memes about Miami culture, politics, and identity.

Photo by Sofia Hidalgo

The unrealistic and impossible nature of Andrew's book, Miami Creation Myth — and its humble beginnings — defies our expectations of passionate diatribes or climate doom-ism.

Instead, Andrew invites readers, to view the familiar failures of Miami politics or affordability through a humorously warped lens that still preserves the beauty of our home.

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“I desperately want Miamians to see themselves faithfully represented, even when I make fun of them. I want to make them laugh. I want to make them think. I want to present others’ experiences through my work,” Andrew writes.

Andrew’s childhood was steeped in these world-creation tales, interpreted uniquely in Greek, Roman, Indian, and Japanese mythology. The theme of fantasy carried into Andrew’s writing, revealing itself in normalized absurdities that border on magical realism: Picture the storied Miami-Dade politician, Joe Carollo, giving a press conference, but he’s actually a grenade with the pin precariously removed from the clip.

I think the city can and should be so much better than it currently is because I really care about it. I care about its environment. I care about its people. I care about its culture. I care about the land, the physical land, and ocean upon which we built this city. I want it to be better for everyone: for the humans, for the animals, for the plants, for everyone living here.

That's the ultimate goal. And everything that I write, everything that I do is in service to that — including when I take the piss out of Brickell.

Miami Creation Myth began from Andrew’s perspective, a Miamiborn child of Cuban immigrants who has long navigated the ridiculousness and beauty of the city.

“One of the subjects I love to tackle is hypocrisy in the power structure of Miami. If you're in power, you see yourself as the default. There's a very antagonistic relationship among groups here that have been historically marginalized. So, I love to lampoon that perspective. And that's why I love satire so much,” Andrew said.

“It can be a public service to an extent because you're trying to elevate these really important issues that are otherwise not really in the general conversation or should have a more prominent position in the general conversation,” he continued.

Andrew reserves the lampooning for those in power and his own community. The principle prevents him from further marginalizing a marginalized community or speaking in ignorance. It also narrowed the field of voices represented in the book’s first drafts. Miami is largely Cuban, as is Andrew, but largely a lot of other things.

So, he changed tact.

I wanted to write it in every single language of Miami, so that includes Haitian-Creole, Jamaican-Patois, Miccosukee, Portuguese, Spanish, and that meant that I needed to collaborate with these different people. It was an exercise in setting my ego aside.

One of these community voices was Miami’s Seminoles.

Cheyenne Kippenberger — speaker, advocate, and former Miss Florida Seminole and Miss Indian World — informed Andrew he got the chapter about them wrong, then helped him fix it.

“There's a lot of other people in the book. When it comes to what I personally write, I have no problem whatsoever changing that based on other people's feedback when I mess up or when I just don't do something correctly. But, the parts of the book that I feel are most important that I will not compromise on, are those parts that other people shared with me because those are their stories. I don't want to mess with that whatsoever.

I want to present that accurately and authentically, and that's not going to change.

I really love this city. I love how culturally rich and diverse it is, but, at the same time, I don't have rose-tinted glasses on. The mission of the book is to reflect to Miamians an accurate sense of the city and themselves. So this book is just for Miamians.

I CARE ABOUT MIAMI its environment its people its culture the land the ocean I WANT IT TO BE BETTER FOR EVERYONE. Andrew Otazo Writer & eco-activist

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Photo by Sofia Hidalgo

Andrew’s brand of satire balances reality and absurdity to make us Miamians consider ourselves empowered in shaping this city we call home. The complexities and conflicts of our day to day are featured rather than excoriated or glossed over, allowing for a unique sort of record-keeping that describes how the city functions.

Andrew’s plans for Miami Creation Myth are big. He’s already created an audiobook (to be released) featuring talented voices belonging to the communities he features; it’s been put on in theater and will hopefully become an animated short. As for the next phase of Miami’s creation, there’s more to come.

“I'm planning on doing two more books. One is a deeper dive into different aspects of Miami, and the last is just how every mythos ends…with an apocalypse,” Andrew said. “How's Miami gonna go down? It's climate change.”

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Despite fears of climate catastrophe, Andrew speaks to the hope we can reinvent ourselves and ensure our home’s resilience.

“Climate change is an existential crisis. As someone who can't go see my family's graves in Cuba and has this big cultural canyon in my soul because I can't reconnect with my madre patria, Miami has become that. I would love to pass on a house or something to my children and my grandchildren here in Miami, but that's not possible if the city is underwater. So, it means a lot to me personally; it taps into a lot of historical trauma.

I don't want to be another freakin’ refugee like my parents were. I don't want to have to leave this place — where I've established myself and that I care about so much.

WHAT DOES A UTOPIAN MIAMI LOOK LIKE? Essay by Andrew Otazo

The alarm sounds, jolting me out of sleep.

paths weave through rewilded hardwood

around the world mingle and jostle past each

I must’ve hit snooze a few times because my

hammocks populated with Dade County pines,

other. Miami remains a welcoming city for all

phone shows that I have exactly one hour to get

their stately canopies floating above groves of

seeking refuge or a new life. Those previously

from my apartment in Downtown Homestead

sable palm and coco plums. Dozens of public

classified as “undocumented” are now on a

to my job in Brickell, 30 miles away. I smile. No

basketball courts, soccer fields, and open-air

structured path to citizenship. All are treated

need to rush.

amphitheaters echo with the sounds of families

with respect and provided with public services

laughing, playing, and walking their dogs.

in return for the immeasurable value they bring

I brush my teeth, pull on work clothes, grab a breakfast bar, and am out the door in 15 minutes. A brisk, five-minute walk to the Metrorail is the most pleasant part of my day.

Shade trees block the rising sun, lowering the temperature significantly. Cyclists in protected bike lanes whiz by, also on their

Along with the Palmetto and Dolphin Expressway, these former highways form the world’s largest converted greenway—a model for cities wishing to replicate Miami’s astounding success. Simply put, now that the Magic City has such an efficient public transit system,

way to the station.

most residents don’t need their cars, freeing

The escalators and elevator to the platform

street grid still exists, of course, but the majority

work as smoothly as ever. You’d think the

of Miamians choose to ride the Metrorail’s

Miami-Dade Transit Authority was run by Swiss

nine lines or the countywide system of rapid

engineers because I’ve never seen any of their

bus routes. Passengers who need to travel

facilities break down.

farther can use the high-speed rail system to

The station sign says the next express train to Brickell is due in three minutes. They run like clockwork every five minutes, so even during rush hour, there’s plenty of space in the cars. While I wait, I scan the horizon, which has become completely bereft of powerlines since FPL was abolished. Instead, rooftop solar panels on nearly every building provide free, distributed electricity to all businesses and residential housing.

The train pulls up. I walk in, take a seat, and

huge tracks of land for public development. The

reach Orlando in one, Jacksonville in two, and Washington D.C. in five hours.

The train speeds through apartment blocks strategically placed at transportation nodes in Cutler Bay, Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest, and South Miami. Ever since the county adopted zoning laws necessitating that all new developments be composed of at least 50% affordable units, our

to the city.

To the north, Overtown, Little Havana, Little Haiti, Liberty City, and Allahpattah are recognized as invaluable heritage sites, protecting their residents from Wynwood’s and Brickell’s creeping gentrification. Noting the importance of maintaining the neighborhoods’ cultural integrity, local governments invest in keeping residents in their homes and provide seed funding for entrepreneurial ventures, transforming historically marginalized communities into thriving business districts and tourist attractions.

The train finally arrives at Brickell Station. A forest of steel and glass concrete office towers rise around me. The transplanted corporations residing within committed to hiring at least 30% of their employees from local communities, integrating previously maligned tech and professional services into Miami’s social

housing shortage has all but disappeared.

fabric and providing its residents a pipeline

Biscayne Bay shimmers to the southeast as

those companies’ alumni used their acquired

the train cruises through Coconut Grove.

accelerate northward.

Since cracking down on fertilizer runoff and

To my west, the Everglades reflects sunlight

seagrass beds rebounded spectacularly. Several

like a massive emerald sheet. Most of the

miles offshore, the Florida Coral Reef—second

canals and dikes blocking the southward flow

in size only to the Great Barrier Reef—has been

of water were long since removed, revitalizing

replanted with colonies genetically designed to

the Southern Everglades after decades of

withstand higher oceanic temperatures, filling

mismanagement. Black bears, deer, foxes,

Miami’s waters with gigantic shoals of fish not

otters, and even the once-elusive Florida

seen in a century. Meanwhile, the bay’s coastline

panther are now regularly sighted neighbors.

is ringed by a living seawall of mangrove forests

With the influx of fresh water from the north,

and oyster reefs, protecting infrastructure from

Florida Bay quickly recovered and is full of

storm surges, providing habitats for millions of

manatees and dolphin pods.

seabirds, crustaceans, and marine mammals,

construction silt plumes, Biscayne Bay’s dying

to acquire good, high-paying jobs. Many of expertise and networks to create a truly native ecosystem of startups and rapidly growing private ventures.

With ten minutes to spare before I’m expected in the office, I take a leisurely stroll down Miami Avenue, enjoying the bustle and energy of a truly world-class city, an example of what can be achieved with a combination of visionary public leaders, an engaged civil society, well-informed constituents and OH MY FUCKING GOD I AM CRASHING HARD FROM THIS AYAHUASCA TRIP. Why am I lying in a Flanigan’s back alley? Where the hell are my pants?? Where’s my phone?…

and driving a booming ecotourism sector.

probably with my pants… I think I’m going to

the Ronald Reagan Turnpike, now an enormous

The Metrorail slows as it approaches Brickell.

Miami? Who cares! God, my head hurts. I’m

linear park. Twenty miles of bike and walking

On the sidewalk below, people from countries

going to throw up. Yep, I just threw up.

To the east, the train parallels what used to be

be sick… Was I hallucinating about a Utopian

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I M A DE

T H AT

by Sarah Knowlton

S

kipping the glossy facades of the fashion boutiques of the Miami Design District, the multi-national crowd is rushing to Paradise Plaza for a different kind of luxury: books. These aren't your average coffee table tomes: the displayed works at Tropic Bound fair, Miami’s first artists’ books exhibition, bridge the worlds of art, craft, and literature, conveying multicultural stories through book-binding, paper-making, marbling, letterpress printing, and other techniques.

The inaugural Tropic Bound was held in February 2023 and Tropic Bound 2025 is planned for February 6 - 9.

Alongside co-directors Cristina Favretto and Sarah Michelle Rupert, Ingrid Schindall, a printmaker and co-founder of Tropic Bound, aims to showcase aspects of Miami that the media often neglect.

MIAMI'S NOT JUST BOOK BANS AND ALLIGATORS; THERE'S MORE HERE, AND PEOPLE ARE DOING THINGS; YOU HAVE ALLIES, ALL OF THESE GOOD THINGS. Ingrid Schindall Tropic Bound

The inaugural South Florida biennial showcased over 60 exhibitors hailing from the United States, Mexico, South America, the Caribbean, Europe, and Egypt. The event also attracted a diverse audience of book lovers.

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Photo Courtesy of Tropic Bound

BO OK

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I like people that like books; I like people that like learning about perspectives other than their own. I like people that like learning about history, critical theory, and all of the things that are deemed so dangerous.

Ingrid’s inspiration came from conversations at the FATVillage ArtWalk, a monthly showcase for local artists.

Photo Courtesy of Tropic Bound

“I kept having people come through the studio and say, Oh my gosh, a printmaking studio. This is amazing. I'm a printmaker. I have a press in my garage. Nobody does this down here. They'd be so adamant about how nobody in South Florida does printmaking,” Ingrid notes. “I had probably 50 people come in saying exactly this, and I’m like, y'all are here, you just don't know each other.”

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Ingrid discovered that many South Florida artists, especially those involved in printmaking, needed the community that she had in Baltimore, where she began her printmaking career. In partnership with Sarah, she started Small Press Fair (SPF) to allow local printmakers to display their works. She also began Existent Books at IS Projects, to experience fine art printmaking and letterpress printing.

Ingrid and Cristina also attended Codex Fair, a San Francisco-based show for artists’ books, and began to wonder about bringing such a fair to Miami.

There are a lot of art book fairs throughout the country, fairs that specialize in books about art, or books that are artistic or books that contain writing about art or exhibition catalogs. But an artists’ book is a different thing. An artists’ book is a book that is a work of art on its own.

Photo Courtesy of Tropic Bound

Within the book world, people like Ingrid and fairs like Tropic Bound are preserving the art of printmaking and bookbinding.

Miami also has a thriving community of small publishing houses: Suburbano Ediciones amplifies the voices of Spanish language authors that may otherwise go unrecognized. Letter16 Press focuses on photojournalism as an art form. Jitney Books publishes local authors featuring artwork by South Florida artists. O, Miami is a publishing house and community organization focusing on poetry. Dale Zine introduced themselves as a zinecollaboration-turned-independent-publisher with a store in the Miami Design District.

Mass production of books is less expensive and more convenient for major publishing companies, but independent presses keep traditional methods alive.

As a printmaking studio specializing in these old-school techniques, that's another part of what we're doing, right?

We're preserving history.

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You don't have to own a giant warehouse full of printing equipment that can produce thousands of books to be able to share your ideas through printed matter. A fair like Tropic Bound shows folks who come that you can make your own books.

By maintaining this knowledge, small printmaking enterprises contribute to the flow of knowledge and information that books can create.

The Tropic Bound opening stood in stark contrast with Florida’s political landscape amidst a wave of book bans and educational restrictions.

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A lot of our exhibitors had never been to Miami before.

We knew that people were going to be coming in and seeing Don't Say Gay and all these book bans going on, and they were going to have a specific sort of mental picture of South Florida.

Tropic Bound is Ingrid’s way of protecting Miami’s diverse cultures and ideas, sharing these with visitors from around the world.

The fair also establishes safe third places that foster idea exchange rather than restrict it.

“I don't want locals to feel like they have to take their children to a different state in order to get an education that is complete.

We will continue to make artists books about whatever topics we want. We will continue to do that, no matter what.”

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Poem by Crystal Rose Nieves, St. Mary's Cathedral Schoo

Plastic Poetry is a collaboration between O, Miami and Free Plastic nonprofit organizations that engage students in environmental education, public art, poetry and beach cleanups. These activities inspire a series of outdoor poems. Each poem is written by a participating student in O, Miami's year-round education program and is displayed on the facade of their schools & community spaces.

The plastics used in these installations are from community cleanups or partners such as shops and restaurants. Learn more at omiami.org and freeplastic.org

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Poem by Elijah Clark, Theodore R. and Thelma A. Gibson Charter School

Photos by Chantal Lawrie

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THE TIME IS ALWAYS

NOW

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