As we close our laptops now for Fall Break, we wanted to send a note of gratitude from us here at Idaho Sierra Club to you. This has been such a challenging year, in so many ways, and we are so grateful that you have stuck with us to continue to build our collective strength for the long road ahead toward Idaho's clean energy future.
We are grateful for our members, our supporters, our volunteers, our committee members, our partners—and the friends and families surrounding each one of them—to help us keep moving our important mission forward.
We are also grateful for the liberation movements and activists of the past and present who have achieved often unthinkable social progress to improve the world we live in and who continue to inspire us everyday in our work for climate justice.
We encourage everyone to take some time this Thanksgiving to push past the false stories and imagery often shared about what the "First Thanksgiving" looked like between Native Americans and pilgrims, and instead learn about the true history of Native American communities and movements in this country.
- Take some time to learn about Idaho's Indigenous peoples. Find out whose land you're living on, you hike on, you mountain bike on. Who was forcibly removed from the area that is now your favorite National Park when it was created.
- Learn about the long history of struggle for Idaho's Nimíipuu people to save the salmon that are so sacred and integral to their way of life, which continues to this day as the salmon sit on the brink of extinction due to white settler colonial impacts on their habitat.
- Read the historic Albuquerque Declaration from the Native Peoples Climate Change Summit back in 1998, in which Indigenous leaders detail the impacts of climate change on Indigenous communities and the importance of following their leadership as we develop solutions to this global crisis.
We owe so much gratitude to the Indigenous people who have long tended to our earth and are continuing to show us what it means to build a more balanced, regenerative economy.
We all have so much learning to do, so much gratitude to share, and so much progress that we can make together moving forward. Thank you so much for being on this journey with us, and for all that you do, big and small, for the Idaho Chapter Sierra Club.
Wishing you good health, good food, and community,
Lisa Young & Eric Willadsen
Idaho Chapter Staff