January Climate Café
Join us for the first climate café of 2025. Since September 2023, we have been building community together around our facing together difficult realities we are living through.
This month's café is at Speciation Cellars' taproom on Wealthy St. SE in Grand Rapids. Speciation's note on how to find it: "It’s set back in an alley, behind the Studio Z textiles Building. We have a parking lot with plenty of spaces, so feel free to pull right into the alley. If our lot is full, there’s free street parking on the North side of Wealthy St."
We are meeting this month at an establishment that has food (a pizza food truck) as well as alcohol available for your purchase if you wish. The intent in doing so is to continue experimenting with spaces, but if this is not a space you feel comfortable for any reason, please use your judgment and we will see you at another climate café soon. Masking is welcome but not required.
So, what is a climate café? It is "a simple, hospitable, empathetic space where [feelings] and uncertainties about our climate & ecological crisis can be safely expressed."
A climate café is a nonjudgmental space open to every person ready to explore eco-emotions in a group setting and within a justice orientation. It is an advice-, debate-, and fixing-free zone, but rather a lightly peer-facilitated space to focus on feelings about current climate realities, and to create community around those feelings and offer mutual support. There is no charge to participate. (Offerings to offset the cost of space rental are welcome but never expected.)
Climate Café starts with a short orientation to the space, followed by introductions and a lightly facilitated roundtable conversation.
At Climate Café GR, we value everyone’s participation who sincerely wishes love and liberation for each of their co-participants. We expect all participants to engage in respectful peer sharing and support. We understand participants may hold different viewpoints, but since the focus is on relating our experiences, we ask all would-be participants to refrain from argument during the session.
Climate Café Grand Rapids meets monthly. Contact: climatecafegr@gmail.com or @climatecafegr on Instagram. (Do not worry if you do not see many signups on Luma. We promote events on several platforms, and we do not require RSVPs. There will be others there!)