January 29, 2019
In 2018, Philadelphia Climate Works has grown as a coalition; we’ve deepened our relationships with each other and with stakeholders, formalized some of our processes, created shared work and campaigns, and brought our mission and work in front of the public. Here are some of our milestones:
- We are meeting and communicating more: we meet every other month on the last Tuesday of the month with update calls two weeks before and after each coalition meeting, and update emails as needed. We’ve also had success with holding group brainstorms in between meetings and we’ve had members attending partner events more frequently.
- Since October 2017, the coalition had 8 full coalition meetings, our most attended meetings were hosted by District 1199C NUHHCE (18 people) and AFSCME DC33 Local 427 (15 people).
- PCW hosted four socials: three happy hour social events in May, July, and December, and one small group trip to a documentary movie screening, and folks have shared that they’ve enjoyed connecting with each other outside of the context of our work.
- In January 2018, the coalition formalized our governance structure by drafting a Membership Letter, and creating a governance structure.
- The coalition has gained more recognition by the City through our efforts to submit comments and engage in public participation. For example, Terry Williams (Eastwick Friends and Neighbors Coalition), Sue Edwards (Sierra Club), and Robin Mann (Sierra Club) and I participated in a stakeholder meeting with the Office of Transportation, Infrastructure, and Sustainability to provide feedback on the City’s plans for electric vehicle parking and charging infrastructure.
- Christine Knapp, Director of the City’s Office of Sustainability has made efforts to include PCW at key stakeholder tables, such as the Bloomberg Climate Cities advocates roundtable.
- This year, I also represented the coalition at several Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO events including their Leadership Conference in February. We also hosted a table at the Labor Day Festival.
- I also took advantage of other opportunities to represent PCW at public events: I moderated Representative Bullock’s Environmental Justice Panel in March, and joined Terry Williams on a Temple University panel exploring Eastwick’s organizing history and the role of public participation in April.
- At the end of the year, five members of PCW (including myself) participated in the Labor Network for Sustainability Northeast Convergence on Climate, which allowed everyone to get to know each other better and also meet other labor leaders who are also concerned or engaged in climate issues. I also participated in a panel during the conference to talk about Philly Climate Works and our work.
Zakia Elliott was born in Philadelphia and raised in a union family. With Philadelphia Climate Works, she helps move the City to combat climate change by justly investing in its workforce and its impacted communities.