Newsletter- July 2023 update from Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter
July 31, 2023
Join us in the park this summer!
Hi Supporter,
In this newsletter- updates from our groups and networks, invitation to our summer socials, how you can go solar, plus all our regular features.
Happy reading!
Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter Takes Climate Action at
Dead & Co. Participation Row
Top - Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter leaders, Roxanna Caldwell, Vice-Chair (left) and Julie Lowe, Chapter Chair (right). Below - taking action at our table. Photos: Julie Lowe.
Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter leaders, Julie Lowe, Chapter Chair and Roxanna Caldwell, Vice-Chair joined an event with Dead & Co. and "REVERB, Music Climate Revolution" in Participation Row at Ruoff Music Center on June 25th.
The Chapter was invited to participate in the concert event by tabling in Participation Row that includes groups like Headcount, an organization that helps concert goers get registered to vote and interested in democracy and like REVERB.
About 200 concert goers took action that day with Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter to help save our forests!
Our Summer Socials season kicked off with a wonderful gathering of Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter staff, volunteers, supporters, and passers-by at the beautiful Marott Park in Indianapolis earlier this month. These relaxed, all-ages events are a great way to get to know your local Sierra Club and meet new people. We have two more socials this summer - find out more and register at sc.org/hcevents!
Sierra Club staff, volunteers, and supporters at the Summer Social earlier this month in Marott Park. Photos: Rebecca Dien-Johns
Join us this summer in the park!
For more information and to register, go to sc.org/hcevents.
Help the environment and lower your bills with rooftop solar!
Solar Co-ops are a great opportunity for homeowners, nonprofits, and businesses in communities around Indiana to leverage their bulk purchasing power to get a great deal on rooftop solar. The solar co-op is designed to make it easy for you and your neighbors to answer your questions about solar technology and get a group rate for installing solar energy. Learn more about the group and find upcoming events at SolarUnitedNeighbors.org/Indiana
Spotted!
Sierra Club staff and volunteer leaders are passionate about getting out there and spreading the word about issues that matter to Hoosiers!
Winding Waters Group volunteer leaders Rebecca Lorenz and Natalie Perry at the Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter table. Photo: Julie Lowe.
The Winding Waters Group had a wonderful experience tabling at the first League of Women Voters, Brown County Pollinator Fest at the Brown County 4-H Fairgrounds. The event was suggested by the President of the LWV Brown County and planned by the members for an afternoon of family education and fun. Expert speakers gave a short presentation about the importance of pollinators and native plants and the importance of keeping invasive plant species under control that included, The Nature Conservancy and State of Indiana Cooperative Invasive Management (SICIM ), and Brown County Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). It was a family event with activities for children at each table and the opportunity to learn how to make a butterfly feeding station outdoors during the speaker presentations.
The Uplands Network has also been busy!
The Uplands Network tabled with partner, Artists for Environmental Restoration, at the Get Outdoors Day at Switchyard Park in Bloomington. Folks of all ages expressed their concepts of nature through art. They are partnering again to provide family hikes and follow-up art workshops for "Teens and Tweens."
Their members worked on the Hayes Trail in the Deam Wilderness to remove more multiflora rose, which is an invasive plant that forms dense masses that interfere with other woody species and replaces native plants on forest edges. We are committed to adopt this trail.
The Uplands Network event in June was a pleasant hike around Yellowwood Lake with people from around the state.
Top: Sierra Club hikers enjoy the lake at Yellowwood
Middle: Sierra Club members Mary, Cindy, Amy, Greg and Marilyn worked on the Hayes Trail.
Bottom: Uplands Network partnered with Artists for Environmental Restoration. Photo: Dena Hawes, Executive Director.
Left: a box turtle spotted on the Yellowwood hike.
Photos other than those marked, courtesy of Marilyn Bauchat.
Your local Sierra Club in the press:
Podcast: Activate! Mary Reardon, Sierra Club - Invasive plants are choking out native wildlife in the Hoosier National Forest and the Sierra Club is fighting back.
The Hoosier Chapter was quoted in this national news story, Draft permits advance for Indiana CO2 storage project (paywall), about the Wabash carbon capture draft permits: “We opposed the enabling legislation for the Wabash facility, and we broadly reject methods of hydrogen production that rely on fossil fuel feedstocks and carbon capture and sequestration, rather than those based on electrolysis of water using renewable energy,” - Amanda Shepherd, director of the Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter.
Readers' Photos
Last month, reader Neal Dake shared some photos of swap milkweed on his property and monarch caterpillars enjoying the plants.
This month, he's sent a photo of milkweed beetles on the same plant. What wonderful examples of a simple way to help pollinators thrive!
Thank you so much for sharing, Neal!
Do you have a photograph of Indiana nature that you would like to share? We'd love to see it and perhaps feature it in a future newsletter!
Use the button below or email
rebecca.dien-johns@sierraclub.org
Now through October, 2023
Belmont Beach in Indianapolis has a ton of great events happening over the summer that are all free and family-friendly... movie nights, concerts, sound bath meditations and more! See the 2023 event schedule for more information.
