First Planet Southie meeting a smash!

Wow! We are pleased as punch that 22 wonderful people showed up at our first Planet Southie meeting on Monday, August 23. Please see the Meeting Notes to learn who is involved how to plug into South Boston environmental projects including:

• Anti-litter campaigns
• Community gardens
• Farmers market
• Global warming event on 10-10-10
• Public transportation
• Recycling
• Environmental justice
• Saving the trees in Andrew Square
• Solar power event

There is also interest in asthma initiatives.

We decided to meet the 4th Monday of every month from 6:30 to 7:30 pm. Location to be determined (the library is booked).
 
Next meeting is September 27, 2010. See you there!

Stay tuned by following Planet Southie on Twitter and Facebook

Planet Southie's First Meeting on Monday, August 23

We're excited to announce that our first meeting will be at the South Boston Branch Library (646 East Broadway) on Monday, August 23rd from 6:30-7:30pm.

The event is completely open to the public and all are welcome to join us in the official kick-off to this new community-based movement. After the meeting we'll be reconvening at the Blackthorn Pub to celebrate the launch of our group, get to know one another, and bask in the warmth of a proper Irish pub.

Agenda items include, but are not limited in any way, to:

• Facilitating the growth of the South Boston Farmer's Market
• Building awareness of cooling centers in the area
• Encouraging celebration of local "green thumbs" online and in public
• Planning a 350.org "10-10-10" event
• Promoting community gardens in South Boston

Please leave comments and suggestions for these and other agenda items. We really look forward to meeting all of you and sharing our ideas and insights.

For more information, contact Stefanie Valovic and Aaron Miller at 617-962-1735 or planetsouthie@gmail.com.

Please share, email and post our promotional flyer!

Planning first Planet Southie communitiy meeting

Please chime in on the comments if you would like to promote, attend and/or help coordinate our first Planet Southie community meeting!

By the end of August (sooner than later), we will meet at the South Boston branch of the Boston Public Library (and visit the Blackthorn afterwards!). We will promote this meeting as soon as a date is jointly decided on.

We have set up some online communication tools (website, blog, Facebook, Twitter and an email account), and our next step is to meet our neighbors and put our heads together. Some ideas for discussion at the meeting (please feel free to suggest others):

• Plans to reach out to others in our community
• Plans to promote the South Boston Farmer's Market (Mondays at 460 West Broadway)
• Plans to research and promote Cooling Centers (places set up by the City of Boston for people with out air conditioning to go in a heat wave, since this is the hottest summer ever). View the map Aaron made.
• Plans to post pictures of Southie gardens to celebrate folks devoted to growing things
• Plan an event for 10-10-10
• Plan to support Southie community gardens*. There is only one listed and it is called Foster's Nook Community Garden at 344 Athens St . It's on our South Boston community gardens Google map
• More (please share your ideas)

*Update: Suport these amazing South Boston Grows initiatives:

1) The George Berlandi garden in the Old Colony Housing Development is under way with 12 raised beds thanks to the help of South Boston Basketball Academy and the Crittendon Women's Union.

2) Visit the South Boston Grows community garden (and pick up some free produce!) Food will be distributed at South Boston Grows (70 Devine Way is the flagship site) on Thursdays at 1:30 pm.

More info at www.southbostongrows.org

South Boston Cooling Centers

We're building a map in Google showing locations of official City of Boston cooling centers for the South Boston area. The City of Boston website has more information to help residents cope with high temperatures. Suggestions on providing more information are always welcome, so feel free to post a comment.


View South Boston Cooling Centers in a larger map

Our first post: the inspiration for Planet Southie

Welcome to Planet Southie!

We are in the midst of reading a book about global warming/climate change by Bill McKibben entitled Eaarth (yes, there are two a's). Soon after we started reading the book, we realized that we need to find other people in Southie who share our worries and hopes for our community. We can do this by connecting as neighbors and don't necessarily need to get into debates or politics about the sources of climate change. Here is a snippet about the book.

Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We've created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth...Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling back—on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Change—fundamental change—is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance.

After setting up some online communication tools (website, blog, Facebook, Twitter and an email account), our first step is to meet our neighbors and put our heads together. Some ideas:

• Reach out to others in our community
• Have a meeting at the South Boston branch of the Boston Public Library (and visit the Blackthorn afterwards!). We will promote this meeting as soon as a date is set  up
• Promote the South Boston Farmer's Market (Mondays at 460 West Broadway)
• Research and promote Cooling Centers (places set up by the City of Boston for people with out air conditioning to go in a heat wave, since this is the hottest summer ever)
• Post pictures of Southie gardens to celebrate those who devote energy to growing things
• Plan an event for 10-10-10
• More (please share your ideas)

We hope to hear from you!

Stefanie and Aaron
West 2nd Street
South Boston, MA