Let's help trailblazing environmental activist and social change leader, our friend and colleague, Amy Belanger, start her new life in an ecovillage!
Amy is uprooting from the San Francisco Bay Area this Fall, and joining an ecovillage, with the intention to more deeply apply, model, teach and advocate for regenerative ways of living on the planet. With climate change and other environmental and social crises escalating, collaborating together in community is one way social change agents can sustain their lives and work, while also modeling and teaching sustainable, equitable living.
We invite friends, colleagues, and supporters to help raise funds to sustain the important social change work Amy has underway during the transition, and allow her to hit the ground giving at the ecovillage. We view this as a rare opportunity to directly support the life and life-giving work of a beloved community member we believe in, and to participate in the inspiring evolution of ecovillages.
Amy is one of those rare individuals who lives and models the change we hope to see in the world, who gives more than she seeks for herself, and whose love for the planet and the people runs through everything she does. Some of the projects she is migrating to the ecovillage -- and which your contributions will help sustain -- include:
- Pro-bono and sliding-scale consulting to environmental and social justice organizations,
- Fostering food security through her VeggiePalooza project, which teaches and equips people to sustainably grow their own food,
- Natural building and permaculture experiential learning,
- Putting her M.S. in counseling psychology in service to social change by developing an eco-therapy program to support activists and other helpers coping with burnout, emotional distress, and grief over the ecological and social harms they work daily to reverse.
Amy's lifelong service to people and the planet is too extensive to detail here, and no list can capture her heartfulness and the gift she is to the movements she has helped build, the communities she has served, and the people she has helped. Those of us who have worked alongside her for decades have had the privilege of witnessing her dedication, effectiveness, and contributions firsthand.
Among many more contributions to the betterment of our world, Amy:
- Led a 5-year campaign that secured a permanent presidential ban on offshore drilling in the federal waters off the coast of Florida — a big win for coastal habitats and the climate.
- Raised $2.5 million dollars, released a science-based conservation vision, and launched a six-state legislative campaign to protect 1.2 million acres of Southern Appalachian forest lands.
- Co-created the second modern-day local economy scrip, Kansas City Barter Bucks, based on Paul Glover’s Ithaca Hours, and helped build the alternative currencies movement for local economic self-reliance.
- Cofounded the Green Party USA and helped local communities fill elective offices with environmental and social justice advocates.
- Dedicated her time during the pandemic's shelter-in-place to building a replicable local food security project teaching local families to grow their own food, and distributing the plant starts, supplies, and equipment to do it.
- Helped deliver powerful anti-racism education to thousands of people with Victor Lee Lewis and Patti Digh's Hard Conversations series.
- Designed and implemented the campaign that raised $250,000 for another beloved activist and friend, Grace Wicks, this past Spring, when Grace suffered a devastating health crisis.
We accomplish nothing alone and our interdependency is our strength. GoFundMe is a useful way to connect social change agents with those who have more money and good intentions than time and expertise for change-making. To turn the tide on climate change and other threats to our world, we must create social ecosystems like this which bring together our diverse strengths in a murmuration of regeneration.
Please donate and share.
Gil Friend, Jane Byrd, and the rest of Team Amy
P.S. One of the most effective ways to inspire donations is to send a private message to your friends and colleagues, personally asking them to donate and share, with a brief note about what inspired you.
Organizer and beneficiary
Amy Belanger
Beneficiary