Since I was young, I have always loved being a part of a team. I grew up dreaming of playing soccer for the U.S. during a World Cup. Unfortunately, my soccer skills didn’t quite meet the requirements for an invitation to the national team (yet). But in my role at Clean Wisconsin, I’m part of an important team that hosts community meetings to engage with Wisconsinites about environmental issues that impact them.
I have a lot of experience hosting community meetings through my previous job at the City of Evanston. In Evanston, I led a series of over 40 community events that engaged hundreds of people in the city’s participatory budgeting process. You never know what to expect in these meetings. You ask yourself questions like: Will no one show up? Will too many people show up? Will people be engaged? Are people going to be upset? These questions can’t be answered until the meeting begins. Through that experience, I learned that this work requires a team. I still find it moving to remember the committed volunteers, staff, and students that helped make each meeting a success during my time in Evanston.
Now, at Clean Wisconsin, I get to experience all those feelings again through our public health initiative and our rural energy siting meetings. Throughout Milwaukee, we host community events sharing environmental data with community members and connecting that data to potential health impacts. In turn, community members share feedback with us about what data is most important to their community and how to make the information more actionable for them. These meetings are powerful and positive interactions between community members, Clean Wisconsin staff, and partners like the Milwaukee Health Department and MKE FreshAir Collective.
To support our rural energy campaign, I’m part of a different team bringing sound information and resources to communities near proposed clean energy developments. These meetings can have a more tense tone because many attendees have strong feelings about the possible change. Going into a recent meeting in Columbia County, we knew we would have more attendees than ever before, and we intended to try new communication tools to encourage people to consider the benefits and tradeoffs of different energy sources
In the week ahead of the meeting, we noted that the RSVPs for the meeting were going beyond what we had the capacity to facilitate. We put out a call to partner organizations for more support. In that time of need, our call was answered by numerous partners ready to help. We had a challenging meeting in Columbia County where we experienced an overwhelming number of participants, some of whom were disruptive. Despite the challenging circumstances, everyone on the team adapted and worked together to share reliable information and help community members better understand the benefits and changes coming to their region. Through that difficult experience, I bonded even more with my colleagues and partners.
Throughout my career, I have felt a particular connection to the folks I work with on community meetings, seeing their skills and commitment to supporting people through the issues we all face. I might never get the call up to the US Men’s National Team, but Clean Wisconsin has its own team of all-stars, and I am glad to be a part of it.
