January, 2020
We at 350 Pittsburgh are writing to thank you for your sustaining donations. We couldn’t do this work without you. As we begin this new year, we are excited to look back and reflect on all of the activities and projects we’ve been able to undertake because of our generous supporters.
In 2019, your donation helped us establish Student Project Awards to support local Pittsburgh students working on the climate crisis. Our 2019 Student Award recipients are:
- Hannah Blinn, Morgan Block, Camilla Cook, Jessy Swisher, and Amelia Eggan, a team of students who coordinated a family-friendly interactive Earth Month Celebration on April 13 at Chatham University’s Eden Hall campus.
- Anais Peterson, a lead organizer with the Fossil Free Pitt Coalition at the University of Pittsburgh, who will be conducting trainings in advance of the Coalition’s demand for the board of trustees to vote on divestment at their Feb 2020 meeting.
- Graduate students of the Duquesne MBA Sustainable Business Practices program who investigated PA state-level impacts of the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA) along with the Pittsburgh chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby.
With your support, we also partnered with other local groups to organize a Climate Change Town Hall with Rep. Mike Doyle at the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall on August 14, where ten expert panelists discussed clean energy and sustainability. This event was a success, with an estimated 450-500 people in attendance (a high turnout for summer vacation!), and press coverage in The Allegheny Front, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Pittsburgh City Paper.
This summer, we also formed the 350 Pittsburgh Petro Chemical Action Team (P-CAT), a group that represents 350 Pittsburgh as members and coalition builders with other groups in our region such as People Over Petro, The Breathe Project, OVEC (Ohio Valley), Izaak Walton League, and Better Path Coalition. We also made a strong showing at local environmental events, tabling at SolarFest and Mother Earth News Fair, where we met with other concerned Pittsburghers working to fight climate change.
We are especially proud of the high turnout for the Sep. 20 Global Climate Strike at the Pittsburgh City-County Building. Nearly 1,000 people came to hear youth activists, including lead organizer Leandra Mira, demand action on climate change, and we received coverage in every major local news outlet.
Our work this year didn’t stop there. We also wrote a letter to protest fracking giant EQT’s sponsorship of the Children’s Theater Festival, and we adopted a new donations policy that states that we won’t accept donations or grants from any foundation whose investment portfolio contains fossil fuels, until that foundation has publicly committed to divestment.
As we look towards 2020, we can’t wait to plan more events and actions that will fight climate change and build a more sustainable future.
If you haven’t already, please sign up for our digest by emailing [email protected] and follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Pittsburgh350/ to stay abreast of all the events we will be planning in the New Year!
We are able to do this work because of your generosity. Together we will fight climate change and work to build a more sustainable future in 2020.
Gratefully,
The 350 Pittsburgh Resources Team