The View from the Summit: A Day at the Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit

Eight-foot-long, black-clothed tables, covered in hundreds of shiny name badges. Clusters of people with ceramic coffee cups crowded around exhibitors. And me, Green Umbrella’s Communications Manager, eating a plate of scrambled eggs and fruit, writing it all down. The 12th annual Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit, the largest conference on sustainability in the Midwest, has begun!

Let’s back up a bit. I’ve been working for Green Umbrella, Greater Cincinnati’s Regional Climate Collaborative and host of the Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit, for about three years now. I wanted to try something a little different for this year’s Summit: instead of just taking pictures and posting on social media, I decided to do that PLUS take overly-detailed notes throughout the Summit to compile into a blog post so that people who have never attended can really understand what it’s like to experience the largest sustainability conference in the Midwest. And how incredibly awesome, inspiring, and motivating it is.

Fair warning – this is long (in my defense, it was a big day!). Below are the different sections, please feel free to jump to the ones that interest you the most.

Electric Vehicle Showcase
Breakfast & Overall Vibes
Programming Start & Keynote Speaker
Morning Breakout 1: Beyond the Box
Morning Breakout 2: Short Talk Series: Food & Agriculture
Lunch, Summit Awards, & Plenary Panel
Grounding & Meditation Space
Afternoon Breakout Session 2: Community-Led Research: The Power of Lived Experiences as Data for Policy Change
Performance Showcase
Final Thoughts & Takeaway

So here was my day, from start to finish, attending the Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit, hosted by Green Umbrella, at Sharonville Convention Center in Cincinnati, Ohio on June 4, 2025.

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The Electric Vehicle Showcase, presented by Drive Electric Dayton

There were a lot of new things this year, including the EV Showcase, which took place first thing in the morning. Drive Electric Dayton set up 4 cars in the front of the convention center, car doors wide open, letting people explore what an EV is really like. My partner has an EV car so I’m already familiar, but it was really cool seeing the EV trucks in person. They looked gorgeous, with tons of storage space, to the point where I was thinking there was no way an EV truck was going to be affordable. But the owner of my favorite of the trucks (the Ford F150) told me it was $42k (??!!) which is waaaay less than I had expected. If I needed a new truck, that’s the one I’d pick. Thanks, Drive Electric Dayton, for introducing me to my newest dream car!

Walking into the Summit space, plus breakfast

Past the Drive Electric Dayton tent and into the convention center lobby, Green Umbrella staff and Summit volunteers checked in attendees and handed out name badges. To the left, an open space was lined with art pieces before opening into a hallway that led to the convention space. I took my time down the hallway to look at the art, which included a crystal-studded rain chain with a bucket of flowers, an enormous sphere made of a collage of plastics, a live artist moving like water in a miniature pool, and a walk-through tunnel with plastic and glass chips hanging from strings that dangled and swung like wind chimes.

In the convention space, I was immediately struck by how many people were there so early. Exhibitors lined the walls and bordered an array of round tables covered in black table cloths. A stage at the front of the room was flanked by two large screens lit with rotating slides that thanked sponsors and promoted different Summit programming. Long tables on either side of the event space were set up with iced tea, water, orange juice, and locally roasted coffee from Deeper Roots and La Terza. I grabbed an iced tea and chose a table on the far right side in the very front row before the stage (close to the action but off to the side enough so that I could get up and move around for pictures without being disruptive). I put down my bags and headed to that most magical of food arrangements: the breakfast buffet.

To the far left of the room, several white-clothed tables held steaming chafing dishes, plates of fruit, and bowls of yogurt and oatmeal. I loaded a plate with scrambled eggs, sauteed vegetables, yogurt, granola, and fruit. People who attend conferences know that food made en masse tends to be subpar taste- and texture-wise, but everything was really tasty. I planned on going back for seconds, but then Charlie stepped up to the microphone, and I stayed in my seat – I didn’t want to miss a moment of the program.

Introduction & Keynote

Charlie Gonzalez is the Corporate Engagement & Events Manager at Green Umbrella, which is a long title that means Charlie is always in the middle of everything, making things smoother and easier. He’s in charge of the Summit Planning Team and I swear, he’s done a better job every year that I’ve attended.

Charlie opened by asking us to put down our phones to take a moment and center ourselves (I feel attacked!). A thoughtful silence fell over the crowd, and I suddenly felt lighter, remembering how much I love this event and how inspired I felt at previous Summits. After a moment, Charlie spoke on Sustainable Stories, the theme of this year’s Summit:

“Stories are how we make meaning out of the world around us – and within us … The stories we tell communicate our values. They convey our fears, sadness, and despair; our dreams, hopes, and aspirations.

There’s one meta-narrative in particular that comes to mind that has had a profound influence on the relationship between humans and nature. We have built a civilization based on the story that we are separate from and superior to nature. … It is a story that has taken us to the brink of an unimaginable existential and ecological crisis.

Once we see and understand how narratives are built into the framework of our existence, we can work to reimagine and change the story. Let’s tell stories of the world we aspire to create. And let’s live a life that helps bridge the gap. – Charlie Gonzales

… Indigenous people have long been champions of environmental stewardship, with a worldview rooted in a deep sense of interconnectedness and respect for all beings. I’m thrilled that this year’s Summit centers Indigenous perspectives on living in harmony with nature and the rhythms of local ecosystems.

Once we see and understand how narratives are built into the framework of our existence, we can work to reimagine and change the story. Let’s tell stories of the world we aspire to create. And let’s live a life that helps bridge the gap.”

*Full disclosure, I cheated here a bit. I asked Charlie for a copy of his comments, so those are actual quotes. The rest of the notes I took from speakers and session are summations/my own words.

There were a couple more introductions before the keynote: 

• Ryan Mooney-Bullock, Executive Director of Green Umbrella
• Words from Summit sponsors: Fifth Third Bank, Duke Energy and Xavier University’s Edward B. Brueggeman Center for Dialogue
• Rachel Crammer, Climate Fellow and Climate Futurist (she talked about how we need positive climate fiction, not just dystopias, because it changes the way we think in a negative way. She described a concept that was new to me: Solarpunk, which is an aesthetic and philosophy that imagines the future through a lens of environmental justice) 
• And Brianna Mazzolini-Blanchard, Executive Director of the Urban Native Collective, who introduces the Keynote Speaker: Dr. Lyla June Johnston 

“Greetings, my kin and my people,” began Dr. Lyla June. That’s my favorite opening from any speaker ever. I was immediately at ease.

The first thing she did was myth-busting: 

1. The Indigenous peoples in Ohio were not primarily hunter gatherers. They were cultivators of the land. The abundance that the colonizers stumbled upon was not an accident, but designed and cultivated over generations of Indigenous peoples.
2. There were not just a few Indigenous people living in the space found by the colonizers. There were large populations of established communities.
3. The Indigenous communities weren’t there for a “few thousand years”. They were around for at least 23,000 years.

Next, Dr. Lyla June dove into her slide deck, which was packed with examples of Indigenous regenerative ecosystem design from around the world. Regenerative ecosystem design is the intentional planning of crop and livestock production around how the environment already functions – like if you know a certain area floods every time it rains, planting a native crop there that thrives with intermittent and heavy watering. This sort of design requires much less maintenance and creates a lasting, flourishing area that feeds the whole ecosystem. Some of my favorite examples she mentioned were: 

• North American grasslands pyro-management – intentional burning of old grasses to mineralize the plants’ nutrients and revitalize the soil. Because the native grasses had deep root systems, they would survive the burn and grow through. Now, the grasslands are covered with invasive species that are not adapted to burning. If and when it burns, the fire is destructive instead of restorative. 
• Floodplain aquaculture in Bolivia – during times of flood, the Baure people would build berms and pools that would funnel the fish into weirs that would remain as the water receded, essentially farming the fish and creating a natural fishery.
• Kwakwaka’wakw clam gardens – around Quadra Island, right above Vancouver on the Northwest Coast of North America, the Indigenous peoples would use empty shells to build up a sort of wall along shoreline waters that would cultivate a healthy ecosystem for new shellfish. They’d remove intrusive stones and destructive debris, resulting in a clam garden designed to feed the entire biosphere.

She had a lot of examples – like, a lot – and stressed that just because these techniques were used in the past, that does NOT mean they were primitive. These techniques were cultivated over time, designed with intention, and successful in helping both the Indigenous peoples AND the entire ecosystem thrive. “With the way we’re managing the Earth,” Dr. Lyla June said, “I don’t know that we’ve ever been more primitive than we are now.”

Then Dr. Lyla June brought up something that really had an impact on me, something I’ve been thinking about ever since. Humans are good at supporting systems. Humans grow, clear, and nourish. What if humans are a keystone species? What if our ability to reason, plan, and design makes us perfect stewards of our Earth? 

If I’m being honest, I’ve been pretty pessimistic about humans and our role in the world lately. There are so many examples of humans bringing about destruction in nature, I’ve been harboring resentment against my own species. But the idea of being a keystone species, one that ties an ecosystem together by creating an environment that encourages life and abundance, is a compelling one. I think of my little backyard – with pockets of flowering bushes crowded with pollinators, a compost pile teeming with regeneration, a peach tree beloved by neighborhood squirrels – and realize every choice I’ve made to make our yard a nicer place for our family has also brought more life and food into the entire backyard mini-ecosystem. Maybe we can learn to view the Earth not as a resource to pillage, but as a living, breathing home to cultivate for all life.  

Dr. Lyla June received a well-deserved standing ovation from the Summit crowd at the end of her talk. Throughout the rest of the day, I heard people talking about how moved and inspired they were. I’m still thinking about it, weeks later, and planning more about how I can encourage more life around me. I think I’ll start, as Dr. Lyla June suggested, with simply filling the water in my birdbath.

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Morning Breakout Session 1 – Beyond the Box

And now for something completely different: for my first morning breakout session, I chose Beyond the Box: A Journey in Innovation and Sustainability in Packaging.

I decided to check out this one because it made me think of all those times my family ordered online, seeing all that packaging, and regretting it immediately as my recycling and trash cans filled up. The session’s speakers were:

• Joey Beyersdorfer, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Clear Packaging
• Emily Williams, Sustainability And Innovation Partnerships Leader, TC Transcontinental Packaging
• Jeff Snyder, Senior VP of Recycling & Sustainability, Rumpke Waste & Recycling
• Nathan Mckee, Sustainability Analyst Manager, Trayak
• Molly Spitzer (Moderator), Sustainability Analyst, Trayak

In this session, I learned that when analyzing a product’s environmental impact, brands look at a life cycle assessment. This includes the sustainability impacts of the product throughout its entire life, from idea to manufacturing to consumer and beyond, plus transport throughout the process. The “carbon footprint” is just one lens they look through. Does processing put out emissions? How much water is being used in production or growth, and how does it impact water quality afterwards? Does making something recyclable make the production journey worse? 

Jeff Snyder from Rumpke had a lot of stats ready about how much opportunity we’re missing as far as recycling. In Ohio: 

• 31% of corrugated cardboard is recycled
• 24% of paper is recycled
• 22% of glass is recycled (This one kills me! Glass is such a great material to recycle!)

Overall, 70-75% of recyclable material goes into landfill, and Rumpke does NOT want that. Landfill space is not a limitless resource. What can be recycled, they want recycled. Rumpke uses AI and x-rays to distinguish among different plastics, even down to the specific brand the material came from – like, they could tell you how many Dasani water bottles Cincinnati recycles, which is crazy to me. The new technology can also help identify dangerous materials to pull out of waste before it heads to the landfill, like lithium ion batteries (NEVER throw those in the trash, y’all!!). 

Then there’s compostability testing in packaging. If something is designed to be compostable, does it break down enough? If it breaks down, does it add microplastics or hazardous materials to the soil? Will the compost created from the material actually sprout seeds? And there are different types of composting: commercial composting, at-home composting, “natural” composting (like tossing a banana peel out of your car window), freshwater composting (like tossing a banana peel into a lake), saltwater composting (like tossing a – you know what, stop throwing your garbage everywhere, people). So there have to be different types of compost testing. The path to market for a new “compostable” product is very expensive, and it takes a long time to get there. Plus, compostable packaging is only compostable if people *actually* compost it. If you put compostables in the recycling bin, it goes to the landfill where it takes 50-60 years to break down. Landfills are just not set up for effective composting.

The session was just about over when Nathan Mckee from Trayak brought up something I was really excited about: refill and reuse! I wish we’d gotten to this part sooner, because Nathan had an excellent point – up until that moment, we’d only been learning about and discussing single-use items like plastic bags and shipping materials. What could really make a difference in sustainability is moving away from a linear production line and starting to focus on the opportunities of refillable and reusable items. Think about it – what if anytime you went to Starbucks, you got a reusable cup that you just gave back the next time you went? Think of all the cups, lids, and little green drink stoppers you’d save from landfill. Closed systems like schools, hospitals, and stadiums have huge possibilities. There’s a long way to go, but there are opportunities ahead.

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Morning Breakout session 2 – Short Talk Series: food systems & agriculture

This was a different type of breakout session than Beyond the box, which was a panel of industry professionals discussing the same topic. Hosted by Chris Smyth from the Common Orchard Project, the short talk series had seven different people give a mini presentation on their area of expertise. To compare, it felt like a YouTube playlist of videos vs a full episode of a tv show – different vibes, both great. Below is a list of the speakers and what I took from each of their presentations.

Jason Kamp, Director of Garden Programs at Gorman Heritage Farm

Jason’s presentation was a very personal one. He detailed feeling stuck and lost in his day-job before finding Wendell Berry’s work. Berry is a Kentucky poet and author renowned for his deep connection to the Earth and nature. Inspired by Berry and looking for a life transformation, Jason left his job to become a farmer, joining the team at Gorman and turning his backyard into a garden where his family grows as much food as they can. Follow his story on instagram: @jasonthebackyardfarmer. 

Andrea Chaillet, Graduate Student at Miami University 

Andrea’s piece was on something I never thought about before: sustainability practices in the hemp and cannabis industry. Andrea said that she also works at a dispensary, and there are very few brands that use organic cannabis. People are starting to grow their own cannabis plants at home to make sure their product is actually organic – sometimes you can even find cannabis seeds at farmer’s markets!

Zack Burns, Hydroponics Technician at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden

The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden certainly deserves the title of the Greenest Zoo in America. The giant water tanks at Hippo Cove and Manatee Springs, the enormous reservoir at the new Elephant Trek, and of course providing water for their many resident animals – it’s all part of a detailed network of water conservation. The Zoo is working on water retention so that every drop of rainwater is collected and utilized, both to reduce water use from city sources and to ensure overflow water doesn’t escape to basements in neighboring Avondale homes. They also have a hydroponics program that grows lettuce in vertical container farms on Zoo property that helps to supply the giraffe lettuce supplies!

Susan VonderHaar, Cincinnati Permaculture Institute Director

Last year, the Cincinnati Permaculture Institute received two grants – a Seeds of Change and a Boots on the Ground grant – to both install new local food sites (like community gardens and food forests) and train residents to care for the sites in their neighborhoods. Susan walked us through the mini urban farms that CPI worked at all around the city. The amount of work that they were able to accomplish in only a year with only two grants was incredible to see – they’ve worked at more than 20 sites, with more than 100 people, installing more than a thousand plants at the sites.

Jodee Smith, Resilient Food Systems Manager from the Environmental Resilience Institute at Indiana University

Jodee’s area of expertise is food systems resilience, which is the ability to withstand and recover from food supply disruptions – think of severe weather interrupting a harvest, or a pandemic halting transportation systems. How well will a community respond and react to these disruptions? Well, now there’s a cool website that Jodee helped to develop called CARAT (Community & Agriculture Resilience Tool) where you can self-assess your community’s food systems resilience for free. 

Kevin Mackey, Urban Farming Initiative

UFI is a newer organization – it came together in 2020 after Kevin struggled to make his salsa business work amidst the food systems chaos of the COVID pandemic. He realized that coordination was missing within community circular food systems, and that’s where UFI fits in. Kevin walked through some of UFI’s programs, like their community gardens with commissary trailers that serve as a hub for cultivating, distributing, and celebrating locally grown produce. 

Peter Huttinger, Turner Farm

Peter is the Director of the Turner Farm Community Garden Program, which supports community gardens around the city. He talked about how he was disillusioned with community gardens because they tend to be reliant on one specific leader, who might be inconsistent or disappear in a few years. Through the Community Garden Program, community gardens have a more structured support to help them thrive. Peter talked about how Turner Farm is strongly committed to soil health, regenerative practices, experiential learning, and cultivating a culture of generosity throughout their programs. 

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Lunch, Awards, & the Plenary Panel

My favorite part of everything is the food. For lunch, there was General Tso’s cauliflower with rice and sauteed veggies, plus sliced portabella mushrooms and mixed salad with a garlic/ginger dressing so good I could sip it from a straw. For dessert there were trays of bite-sized pastries: tiny vanilla cupcakes, s’more squares, turtle brownies, and a berry crumble bite. I tried everything, including each of the desserts, and enjoyed more Deeper Roots coffee while watching the awards ceremony.

This year’s plenary panel was called “The Power of Sustainable Stories: Inspiring Change Through Climate Narratives”, and I have to say, this panel was stacked. There was the amazing keynote speaker from this morning, Dr. Lyla June Johnston; Erika Street Hopman, from ChavoBart Digital Media and one of the people behind the Yale Climate Connections’ Podcast (I LOVE Yale Climate Connections); Tory Stephens from Grist, one of my go-to climate news orgs; Becca Costello from WVXU, my favorite local news radio; and as a moderator, they had Dani McClain, an award-winning journalist and author who used to be the Writer-in-Residence at the Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library. Everyone introduced themselves, and then Dani led the conversation. I don’t have a transcript of the conversation, but I did take notes on what the speakers each talked about, so that’s what I have below.

“I’m on this stage because of sewage.” You have my attention, Becca Costello. She’s one of the developers of the podcast Backed Up, which is about Cincinnat’s complicated sewer system and was named one of the best podcasts of 2024. She talked about how she didn’t intend to make the podcast about climate change and sustainability, but that’s how it turned out, because all these community and environment issues are linked. The work led to her reporting on logging in Indiana forests, and someone working out there tried to get her fired (a badge of honor for reporters, she said). She also talked about the new grounding and meditation space at the Summit and something there that really struck her. In the grounding space, there was a table covered with a map of a community. Two mounds of clay were there for attendees to use to sculpt physical things that they wanted to see in a sustainable future, and to place on the map. Becca molded a book to represent freedom of information, and she became emotional thinking about how so much is censored, held back, or “redacted” because of what the truth means. But truth is how we move forward and make strides towards a future that is livable for all. I made a mental note to check out the grounding space later.

One of the things I loved about Dr. Lyla June’s morning keynote was the amount of examples of Indigenous cultivation, but in the plenary panel, she told us that she didn’t even hear about Indigenous environmental brilliance until she was in grad school in her 20’s. She talked about the lack of transparency, of not learning history that doesn’t fit the colonist narrative. There’s the stereotype that Indigenous people are simply “wise” and “they love nature”, but that’s a wild simplification: they’re ecological scientists. They sculpted the world to be abundant in life and ecology. “I’m trying to increase access to information about my ancestors, and our ancestors,” said Dr. Lyla June. Indigenous people had to be portrayed as primitive savages to justify land theft, because if they’re not people, not “civilized”, colonizers can say “they don’t deserve the world, they don’t need what they have, and we can take it”. The conquering mentality did not have room to acknowledge the depth and expansion of Indigenous knowledge, and so it was ignored or belittled. When we relinquish that conquering mentality, we can allow knowledge systems to flourish.

I was so excited to hear that Erika Street-Hoffmann was part of the Yale Climate Communications’s podcast. I’ve been exploring YCC a lot lately. It’s an incredible resource for ways to communicate about sustainability to new (and potentially reluctant) audiences. Erika has a background in science, but she felt called to storytelling because it’s a way to “crack someone open” to new information. Connecting people’s daily worries to climate change – energy bills, food costs, health concerns – reaches people where they are. A family in a suburban community might not be interested that a beach city on the other side of the country is losing coastline, but they’ll care that their energy bills are going up month after month. One story might not make a huge difference, but as more perspectives, more stories, more people are connected through environmental issues, that makes a change. And Erika has the data to back it up: they take surveys after their radio pieces to show that listeners walk away with new perspectives. And – I love this part – the pieces are only like 2 minutes long, so they’re very palatable, and they’re released daily, so there’s always something new to listen to. 10/10 recommend.

I knew of Grist from coworkers – the Grist website is one of our team’s favorite places for climate news and reporting – but Tory Stephens’ job is one that really interested me. He works on Grist’s climate fiction initiative, Imagine 2200. Specifically not climate dystopian fiction, because there’s already a ton of that out there, and because Grist’s surveys of young people indicate that people already have climate anxiety; they don’t want to read more about it. Instead, Imagine 2200 showcases stories about climate hope, about going through the fire and coming out the other side. His work recalled what Climate Fellow Rachel Crammer talked about in the morning Summit introductions, about solarpunk and reimagining the future through a lens of environmental justice. In Tory’s work with Imagine 2200, they showcase short stories that are decolonizing vs extractive, “through-topian” vs dystopian, green and just vs gray and despairing. It made me think of WALL-E, that Disney movie about a little robot (WALL-E) left alone to clean up a trash-covered Earth after humans escaped to space. I highly recommend it for lots of feelies.

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Afternoon Breakout Sessions – Aka playing hooky and being inspired

After the plenary, I jumped onstage for the GU staff photo, which took less time to wrangle than normal. Typically we’re like herding cats at events like this – there are so many cool people to talk to, we always split in different directions – but Charlie rounded us up before we left the Exhibit Hall.

At this point I still hadn’t decided which breakout session to attend. To buy time before I made a decision, I gave myself the 10 minutes I had to spare in the grounding area. 10 minutes, ha, I should have known better. The moment the door closed behind me, the sounds of the busy conference hall disappeared, replaced by the warm hum of a sound machine (or an air vent? Impossible to tell) peppered with bird song (definitely a sound machine, I saw no birds). The light was soft and cool, and an installation of folded paper leaves hanging from the ceiling stirred gently in the air. A table of climate-themed books, both fiction and nonfiction, stood to my right, while a counter covered in houseplants was on the right. Chairs rested against the far wall where people sat reading. An open doorway led to a bright room full of people crafting handmade clay pieces to add to a map, the one Becca mentioned in the plenary talk. I sat down to add my own clay piece.

I thought about the map’s prompt – what do you want to see in a sustainable world? – and thought about my baby daughter. I thought about how scary it was to think about bringing life into a world that is burning, how microplastics have been found in placenta, how even breastmilk has been found to carry forever chemicals. How a world that is sustainable for all should nurture us, not poison us from inside the very womb. And I got it, how Becca felt emotional around creating her little clay book. Because I was getting emotional molding a lump of clay into a soft figure with arms wrapped around a small bundle, in what I hoped to be a nurturing fashion. I’m not an artist. But I hope that when other people look at it, they too imagine a world where children are safe in a community built to sustain them throughout their lives.

Yeah, I missed the breakout session. But I had a beautiful moment with other people forming their own clay dreams – windmills, peace signs – and I bought one of the cute little houseplants that were on display (a new spider plant, one that already looks much happier than the ones I have in my house).

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Afternoon Breakout Session 2: Community-Led Research: The Power of Lived Experiences as Data for Policy Change

Yet another breakout where there were too many good sessions to choose from, so I chose this session for the silliest of reasons: it was in the Main Room and that’s where I already was. I am so glad I did, because this session was again different than the others I’d attended: it was a presentation of a case study in Chicago that used stories and experiences from residents as qualitative data.

Speakers:

• Paulina Vaca, Urban Resilience Associate, Center for Neighborhood Technology
• Bela Jaimes, New Economy Program Associate, Southeast Environmental Task Force
• Em Ayala, EJCJ Program Manager, Southeast Environmental Task Force

First, Paulina showed three maps of Chicago for the audience to compare: maps that illustrated wealth concentration, social vulnerability, and air quality. The more affluent areas clearly overlapped with the less vulnerable areas and the neighborhoods with better air quality. These maps are telling, but they are missing something: the viewpoints of the residents who live in these areas. The presenters described how traditional systems are structured around data and numbers, not lived experiences. It is very hard to prove environmental racism, but with archival evidence, and a combination of information, you can back up your argument. They defined Community-Led Mixed-Method Research:

Quantitative Findings + Qualitative Findings = Community Needs Assessment

But how do you get ethically-sourced qualitative data?

This is something I never considered before. The presenters talked about an “extractive” mindset, where researchers, organizations, and companies go in to collect resident testimonials without considering where the residents are coming from. I was very interested in this area, so I asked what ethically-sourced qualitative data looks like. It looks like:

• Making sure you are welcome in the community and not forcing your presence on them
• Giving storytellers space to reflect and take breaks as hard topics surface (talking about negative experiences can bring up difficult emotions – think about how you’d feel talking with strangers about your mother’s lung cancer or your neighborhood flooding)
• Compensating people for their time and testimony
• Giving the study/assessment’s findings back to the community (for free!!)

What makes for good qualitative data isn’t a huge number of stories. Look for nuance, specificity, and depth. It’s not meant to replace quantitative data, it’s meant to supplement it and give numbers a human face.

Once you have your ethically-sourced qualitative data and your quantitative data, it’s time to use it to drive action and next steps. Here’s where their case study came in: #StopGeneralIron. 

Originally on the North Side of Chicago, General Iron is a metal shredding company that creates a lot of pollution around them, specifically air pollution that has toxic metals and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Remember those maps at the beginning of the session? Those wealthier, more affluent areas are more heavily concentrated in the North Side of Chicago. And after those communities protested the pollution in their neighborhoods, the Illinois EPA approved permits for new facilities construction on the South Side of Chicago – the lower income neighborhoods that are predominantly Black, Brown, and Latino communities, that already have more vulnerability and poorer air quality than the North Side. South Side community organizers mobilized their community, setting up protests, collecting support, and claiming that it was part of a historic pattern of consolidating industry in the South Side. Both qualitative and quantitative data – resident lived experiences and numbers around health outcomes, industry pollution, and more – worked together to tell the full story of the historic and continuing injustice. The national EPA made the City re-look at the permits, and eventually it was ruled in the favor of the activists. 

General Iron appealed, was rejected, and they have appealed again (as of the Summit, it was still going through the court system). While the fight and this story isn’t over yet, it’s a prime example of how an intentional, strategic community-led mixed-method research initiative can drive action towards the ultimate goal: policy change.

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Performance Showcase

This part of the Summit is always one of my favorites because I love seeing the different ways performers are inspired by the environment. Last year there was spoken word, dancing, and rap; this year, there’s an opera singer, an Indian dance group, and a string quartet! The performances were in the main stage area, so I didn’t even have to move after my last breakout session. Meaning I was that person in the very first row. Great for the breakout session, but would it be smart for live performances? I was about to find out.

First up, soprano Quinn Patrick Ankrum performed selections from No One Saves the Earth from Us But Us, a song cycle by Lisa Neher that was dedicated to Greta Thunberg and those of her generation, and those who will follow. Having heard Quinn do a sound check from the mainstage yesterday while I was helping Charlie with Summit set-up in the convention center lobby, I was nervous about sitting in the front row. I was sure the power of her voice was going to blow me away. But it wasn’t the volume of her voice that bowled me over, it was the emotion. She embodied every word of the lyrics: “The last glacier fits in our warm hands … O vulnerable humans”. I’ve never seen signing like that up close. Her entire face shivered and trembled as sound swirled from her like a wind before a storm. It was a moving and beautiful start to the performance showcase.

Next, dancers from the Cultural Center of India performed Passage of the River: Dances of India by Padma Chebrolu. Bells tinkled as the dancers climbed the stage stairs, performing even before the music started. They were all bright red and gold attire, covered in bells and shimmering with jewelry. At one moment a dancer dropped into a squat so perfectly balanced on her toes that I remembered I needed to do more pilates. Their faces were so expressive and focused that I found myself smiling and frowning along with them in turn. For the first time I wished I was farther away because the dancers filled the stage with their movements in a way I couldn’t capture in the front row without awkwardly turning my head back and forth. The event photographer knelt in front of me, clicking away furiously, and I thought about how she must be imaging all the great shots she was getting. 

Lastly, a string quartet from Summermusik performed Jerod Tate’s Pisachi (Reveal) to close out the showcase. The composition draws from Hopi and Pueblo Indian music, rhythms and form. I’m not exactly an orchestra expert, but I did play cello for a year in the fifth grade, so I can almost confidently say I see two violins, a viola, and a cello. Yes, one is definitely a cello. The piece begins with a gentle call from the viola with soft, high support from the violins. A deep, shimmering hum from the cello brings warmth as a violin takes the high melody until the instruments meet together in harmony. They all seem like they’re living in their own worlds, but in a way that fits together like different species in a forest. A clutch of pizzicato from the violins, a sweeping glissando, and then the music is off again, on a chase after the violins and viola as the cello follows hungrily like a shark in water and then – silence. There’s a breath, and then the audience breaks into applause. I’ve never written along with music to describe it before, so please take this with several grains of very coarse salt. 

The string quartet is going to continue playing during the networking hour, which will take place in the same area as the poster display, which I have neglected so far. But there was so much happening throughout the day! And it’s stationary! So I knew I could come back to it! Which is what I’ll do now.

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Final Thoughts & Takeaways

Blessings upon Deeper Roots and La Terza, for both my morning iced coffee that drove my note-taking throughout the day and the afternoon brew that accompanied my many desserts following lunch.

We see what we seek, and after this Summit, I realize I was really seeking hope and inspiration. And I found it. There’s so much more to the Summit I didn’t prioritize as much as I did in years past – the many incredible exhibitors, networking and connection building, science and data and more – but I found what I needed.

In the plenary panel, Dr. Lyla June described the Dine story of creation, where we’ve gone through 3 worlds, all of which ended in catastrophe – and then we rebuilt the world anew. We’re in our 4th world now, destined to be destroyed as well. But we are learning creatures, people of growth and resilience, and we can rebuild. 

“One person can’t solve it all, but we can all love the world … Our love is enough. It’s what we have to give. We might not have the power to do everything, but we always have the power to love.” – Dr. Lyla June Johnston