PlacerSustain: Voices of Placer County's Sustainability Community

WHAT IS PLACERSUSTAIN?

PlacerSustain is:

• A collaborative network of individuals and organizations interested in creating a sustainable future in Placer County, California.
• An organizing focus for building strength in numbers on local sustainability issues and opportunities.
• A communication channel and hub that brings people and organizations together to work on specific projects, especially the support of existing efforts that are working.
• A facilitator of the exchange of information, application of expertise, and the incubation of ideas and opportunities.
• A co-developer with the community of a knowledgebase of sustainability information and resources.
• A publisher of stories about people and organizations that are doing the work and making a difference.
• An Advocacy Voice for the interests of the local people committed to a sustainable future.
• Support for collaborative working group relationships between local people and organizations.
• A forum for expressing interests and concerns.
• Strengthening our community's capacity to take on our own future well being.

The collaborative work involves bringing stakeholders together and community engagement at the grass roots level. The participants speak with many voices but share common interests in the Wellness of Placer County in terms of the Human Community, the Environment, and our Economy. Interests include Growing Food, Nutrition, Human Health, Energy, Stewardship of Natural Resources, Education, and Sustainable Economies, including jobs, local business development, local to local market development.

PlacerSustain can maintain linkages with regional, state, national and global sustainability efforts. PlacerSustain does not duplicate existing sustainability related efforts--it serves the interests of such efforts, using the tools of communication, information, relationships, and working collaboration. But PlacerSustain is also something more, PlacerSustain can be an organizing focus for working with the public on a peer to peer basis, engaging people where they are, not as they should be, from one perspective or another.  Issues related to Food, Jobs, Sustainable Energy, Human Health, Education, and a future for our Youth, to mention a few, are of great interest to the entire community, cutting accross political and other differences.  The work and the opportunity is Local.

Nobody is coming to rescue us from the future we are creating. The essential work we must do for ourselves. While help is possible, it is increasingly apparent that we cannot rely too heavily upon state, national, and global institutions and economies to meet our needs. PlacerSustain involves the self organizing empowerment of our community's capacity to help each other. Ultimately, it will be what we decide to make it.

The first step in strengthening our community's capacity to take care of our own future is the simple act of stepping forward, identifying ourselves, our interests and values, finding people of like mind to work together, and communicating with each other. There is plenty to do: Buy Local Initiatives, including locally grown food; Energy Initiatives that reduce dependence of foreign oil, Education and Career development in green industry for our young people, supporting local arts and culture, local health and nutrition campaigns, and so on.  This is a grass roots movement by the people.