Opportunities to Share Your Sustainability Priorities with the Village Council

Clara, age 7, DG resident. Her sustainability ideas include: Pick up trash, Use resuable, Plant things, Eat food and do something with the wrappers, Use containers instead of bags

June 10 - 9am, Coffee with the Council at DG Farmers Market

June 20th - Sustainability Discussion at Village Council Meeting

At the June 20th at 7 PM, Village Council meeting, the council will be discussing sustainability and priority action items for the 5-year long range plan. It is very important that people attend the meeting or email the council with support for sustainability in Downers Grove. Specific talking points to come.

June 27th - PDHA meeting with Martin Tully at Lincoln Center

New (Returning) DG Commissioner Martin Tully will join the PDHA meeting on Tuesday, June 27th 7PM at the Lincoln Center on Maple Ave, Room 307. This is a chance to let him know our priorities for DG and get feedback on the Village’s long range planning process and Martin’s views of the attitudes toward sustainability on the part of the Village Council. We’d love to have a good show of people to indicate interest. Please RSVP to kenlerner@yahoo.com or call/text 630-915-0956. Learn more about PDHA on their website.

July 8th - 9am, Coffee with the Council at DG Farmers market

Get Involved - Upcoming Events & Opportunities

1. Take our survey / Join a Subgroup - Interested in participating in any of the projects our Greener Grove subgroups are launching? Take our brief survey to share your ideas on how to create a more green community and express your interest in a particular subgroup.

2. Help us sponsor a fundraiser - have an idea for a fundraiser for Greener Grove? Share your ideas with us! info@greenergrove.org

3. Visit us at Rotary Fest Nonprofit Booth and Farmer’s Market. Dates and times TBD.

4. Join Us for Greener Grove’s Next Meeting - Monday, July 17, 2023 at 7pm - Meet others in our community who are re-imagining a greener Downers Grove. Invite your friends, too! St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, located in Downers Grove at 1125 Franklin, 3rd Floor.

May 22nd Meeting Recap

This was our 5th meeting and it’s clear to all who attended that the smaller groups within Greener Grove are making an impact. The four Greener Grove subgroups are each making progress toward our common goal: making a difference in protecting, preserving and creating a more green community.

Each subgroup shared an update with the group at our meeting last Monday. In a nutshell, here’s what we learned:

• Community Activism - We plan to have a booth at the Farmer’s Market this summer to grow our ranks and begin engaging with the broader community. We will also have a presence at the Rotary Fest at some point between June 24 - 26.

• Political Partnerships - We’ve begun to work on a letter of introduction to our community leaders. We’re working with PDHA (Pierce Downers Heritage Alliance) to develop a plan to share input with our village council on their level of participation with the Greenest Region Compact.

• Projects - We’re looking at growing our membership and becoming a 501c3 organization. Go Green Illinois is a broader group that we will be allying ourselves with. We discussed ideas for fundraisers. GG members attended a District 58 Strategic Planning Meeting and reported on the district’s sustainability plans.

• Communication - Greener Grove will be using the app, Discord, to stay connected with one another and share information. Each subgroup has a space to connect as well as the broader group.

We spent the majority of the meeting getting familiar with Discord on our phones. We must’ve looked funny sitting on our phones, communicating that way while sitting next to one another! But there’s a purpose in it: Since our next meeting won’t be until July 17th, we will keep the conversation alive about sustainability in Downers Grove through discord. We explored all the specific ways we can do that on this app, from posting photos and articles to using zoom-like meeting rooms. including sharing pics of our pets. We hope that all active Greener Grove members will join discord and stay engaged together.

We closed our meeting taking up a donation for St. Andrew’s, who so generously has shared the beautiful 3rd floor meeting room with us.

Find out more about our May 22nd meeting; view the presentation.