Tucson Crossroads Joins Sustainable Tucson

Tucson Crossroads and Sustainable Tucson joined forces to coalesce our common resources.

December 12th's meeting was very productive. Thirty-five representatives from across the Tucson community's diverse sectors met at Ward Six offices (Nina Trasoff, Council Member and Member of the City of Tucson Subcommittee on the Environment).

Kerry Schwartz from Arizona Project WET (http://ag.arizona.edu/AZWATER/wet/), Water Resources Research Center at the University of Arizona, addressed the coalition from the AAEE Board of Directors which requested the coalition suggest how AAEE can best support the work in Tucson.

Lindianne Sarno, Co-Director of Sustainable Tucson addressed the coalition in terms of how the collaborative work can unfold along many fronts, coordinated from a center of shared objectives and sensibilities. She invited everyone present to help populate the new website with resources, articles and key links for other coaltitions members. The new website is built for interactive communication and features a listserve, blog, and word press pages for members. Please go to www.sustainabletucson.org to see how this is developing and sign up for the listserve.

Allison and David Ewolt of Natural Systems Solutions in Tucson ( http://www.attractionretreat.org/NSS/) introduced us to the Sustainable Bellingham model for a sustainability movement in Tucson. The Acorn structure for working together was introduced. Allision and Dave stressed the importance of forming a visioning team with representatives from the major coalitions within the initiative to make sure there is a think tank at the heart of the initiative providing direction for dozens of projects happening simultaneously.

We moved into break out groups for education and events, and to form the structure through which we will work together. The visioning group will meet in late December and early January before the next large group meeting.

Our coalition has attracted hundreds of individuals and organizations in its first few meetings. There is palpable energy, a shared sense of purpose and urgency, and a desire for developing a viable community through new communication tools such as the Living Directory (www.favors.org) and other ways we can get to know each other and network to leverage our impact.

Next Meeting: January 9, Tuesday, 4:15 pm to 6:15 pm, Ward Six Offices
Go to www.sustainabletucson.org to keep up with developing work.

For Sustainable Communities,

Susan