Community Calendar

As the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation rise, and we continue to witness as communities of color, Indigenous communities, low income communities and children are placed on the frontlines of environmental pollution and harm, we can no longer rely on federal and state legislation that are designed to accommodate environmental pollution and degradation rather than prevent it. There is a solution: bypass the laws and turn to the ultimate authority—our state and federal constitutions. Green Amendments (now in 3 states with 18 more on the way) provide constitutional recognition of environmental rights as inalienable and give the highest level of legal protection. Learn what a Green Amendment is, what it does, and how it brings transformational change to our US system of laws and governance when it comes to the environment. Learn how you can be a leader in securing meaningful constitutional environmental rights for your community.

Maya K. Van Rossum is the Founder of Green Amendments For the Generations, a grassroots non-profit inspiring the national movement to secure constitutional recognition and protection of environmental rights in every state and ultimately at the federal level. Maya, a licensed attorney, is the author of numerous publications, including her book The Green Amendment, The People’s Fight For a Clean, Safe & Healthy Environment, now in its second edition, in which she coined and defined the term “Green Amendment”. Maya is also the Delaware Riverkeeper, leading the 4 state, watershed-based advocacy organization, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, for 30 years. She co-hosts Green Genes, an environmental podcast with her daughter. Since launching her Green Amendment movement, New York passed an amendment in 2021, proposals are advancing in 19 additional states, with half a dozen more on the way, and there is increasing use (including with Maya’s assistance) of the Green Amendments that now exist in Pennsylvania, New York and Montana.

Join Nathan Sackett, MD, MS (Director of the Center for Novel Therapeutics in Addiction Psychiatry at the UW School of Medicine), for the Next Generation Medicine lecture. Dr. Sackett will share insights into the world of psychedelics, focusing on breakthrough clinical research for substance use disorders, PTSD, anxiety, and mood conditions. Discover how psychedelics are reshaping modern psychiatric care.

The Arc of Spokane's Legislative Forum will bring together individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), their families, self-advocates, service providers, and policymakers from across Spokane to discuss priorities impacting individuals with IDD and their families ahead of the upcoming Washington legislative session.

This is an opportunity for community members to engage directly with elected officials and candidates in a welcoming, accessible environment, It will provide families with information about local resources and opportunities to become involved in advocacy.

The event is free, but registration is required!

As climate hazards and extreme weather impacts intensify and public systems across the United States face growing strain, mutual aid—understood as grassroots, reciprocal networks of care and solidarity—can be understood as a critical yet under recognized form of climate resilience. While most academic and policy attention has situated mutual aid within the context of COVID-19, its significance extends across both sudden-onset disasters, such as heat waves, hurricanes, and winter storms, and ongoing structural crises, including housing and food insecurity. Across these contexts, mutual aid operates as flexible, trust-based infrastructure: networks that mobilize quickly, adapt to changing conditions, and sustain forms of care that formal institutions often struggle to provide. This talk highlights the role of mutual aid within a climate adaptation and resilience framing, in Seattle, Washington and Asheville, North Carolina and draws upon semi-structured interviews to examine possibilities and challenges to collaboration with formal health institutions and local governments. Attention to these dynamics highlights both the possibilities and tensions that emerge in relation to formal institutions, with implications for how climate adaptation, disaster response, and structural inequities are understood and addressed.

As climate change drives more extreme heat, drought, flooding, wildfires, and other disasters, frontline communities, especially those already living without running water or functioning plumbing, face the greatest risks. More than two million people in the United States currently live in the water access gap (i.e. without safe water or sanitation in their homes), and millions more are vulnerable to climate-driven water quality degradation, water supply disruptions, and disasters that can quickly wipe out their access to water and wastewater services. This presentation examines how communities, cities, and utilities are working to adapt and build climate-resilient water and sanitation services. It explores key questions: How can communities strengthen their built and natural infrastructure, improve water management and planning, and advance laws and policies that support long-term resilience? What types of funding, technology, and information are available—and accessible—to support these efforts? Drawing on findings from Achieving Equitable, Climate-Resilient Water and Sanitation for Frontline Communities by Pacific Institute, Center for Water Security and Cooperation, and DigDeep, the talk highlights major barriers that hinder equitable climate resilience in the United States, including historic underinvestment, affordability challenges, inadequate data, and gaps in capacity and governance. It also showcases real-world strategies from across the country that center community voices, address historical inequities, enhance climate readiness, and expand access to safe, reliable, climate-resilient water and sanitation.