By Diane Bickett and Greg Rotuno
ECO SPEAKS CLE is where the eco-curious explore Northeast Ohio's unique and thriving environmental community. Each episode delivers thoughtful and informative interviews with local sustainability l
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The podcast currently has 65 episodes available.
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In this bonus to our conversation with Maria Paparella, Maria shares a personal story of one of the young adults she deeply connected with through her organization Chair-ity. This young adult faced several challenges as she aged out of the foster care system and started life on her own. But with her perseverance, strength, intelligence, and support from Maria, she has become one of the many Chair-ity success stories. This organization truly makes a difference, one person at a time.
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"Adulting' is hard, but it's exponentially harder if you are 18 years old and aging out of foster care, alone and without a support system. Here in Cleveland, there's an organization helping to ease the transition by providing donated furniture and household goods to young people who have graduated from foster care and moved into a place of their own. That organization is called Chair-ity, and in this episode, we speak with its founder and executive director, Maria Paparella. Chair-ity is a non-profit based in Cleveland that works to address the unmet needs of young adults aging out of the foster care system. Maria was inspired to start Chair-ity when she was just 16 years old. Ten years later, her organization has been a much-needed friend to 662 young adults by providing essential household goods and furniture and making their first place into a home. Join us to hear Maria's story and how she is creating a community of support for young adults exiting the foster care system. Hear the many ways you can help by donating your time, talent, and treasure. The benefits go both ways. One of Maria's favorite quotes is from Ruth Bader Ginsberg: "Fight for the things you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you." Maria is living this quote, and she hopes you will join her.
Guest:
Maria Paparella, Executive Director of Chair-ity
Resources:
Follow Chair-ity on Instagram
About Chair-ity
How to Donate
Chair-ity Success Stories
Connect with Chair-ity
Upcoming Events
Community of Hope (mentor opportunities)
Cleveland Angels (mentor opportunities)
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Meet our fellow Cleveland podcaster, Maci Nelson. Maci is a landscape architect, the creator of The Land+Scape Nerd podcast, and a project manager for LAND Studio, a non-profit that connects communities through art and public spaces. In this episode, Maci shares what it's like to design for urban outdoor spaces and the importance of relying on residents' voices to drive the creation of vibrant, inclusive outdoor environments. Through her work at LAND Studio, Maci shares how public art and other enhancements create community-centric environments that reflect who we are as Clevelanders and how nature-based solutions help mitigate climate impacts in our inner cities. Also, hear Maci speak about her podcast, The Land+Scape Nerd, where she shares stories about people and landscapes and provides resources for anyone interested in the outdoor world. In our Tip Time, Maci gives her favorite native plant recommendations to help transform your outdoor space.
Guest:
Maci Nelson, Project Manager at LAND Studio and creator of The Land+Scape Nerd podcast
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Maci's podcast - The Land+Scape Nerd
Follow Maci on Instagram@thelandscapenerd
LAND Studio projects - Small Giants sculptures at Wendy Park and The City is Our Museum
Cleveland Seed Bank workshops
Wild Ones Greater Cleveland
The Pollinator Partnership
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Jeff McNaught owns Edgewater Surf, a surf shop in Rocky River, where he sells a variety of new and used paddleboards, surfboards, and windsurfing gear. The shop also serves as an informal community hub for styrofoam™ recycling. Jeff started this program to provide a local recycling option for the bulky EPS (expanded polystyrene) found inside paddleboards and encasing appliances, TVs, computers, and other large items for customer shipment. This bulky, lightweight, and rigid foam plastic is not accepted in community recycling programs, and the closest recycler is in Dayton, Ohio.
Working to fill a community need, Jeff established an EPS drop-off location at his shop and installed a "densifier" with a Food Service Packaging Association grant. This equipment compacts the foam so it can be cost-effectively transported. With both collection and processing up and running, Jeff is now the only processor of post-consumer foam in the Cleveland area while he is still running his shop and getting out on the lake to windsurf.
Join us to hear Jeff speak about his vision for scaling this program and what he needs to make it sustainable. Jeff also speaks about what surfing is like in Cleveland and the surfing community and his partnerships with organizations like the Surfrider Foundation working to address problems of plastic pollution. Jeff has turned his passions into his business and is all in. We hope our community will support him.
Resources
Recycling at Edgewater Surf
Shop Edgewater Surf
About Edgewater Surf
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For this episode, I hit the trails with The Cleveland Hiking Club to discover what drives this all-volunteer-run organization with over 1,200 members. The answer? Cool people who are passionate about encouraging and promoting outdoor recreation and making it accessible to anyone who wants to join in. In my interview with the club's Community Engagement Coordinator, Kara Girvin, and David Schiraldi of the Pathfinder Committee, we speak about finding adventure and friendship on the trails and how hiking and spending time outdoors benefits us mentally and physically. Club members lead hikes year-round every day for all levels of hikers. You will find them in the Metroparks, in cities, in our national park, and even in other countries. I recently joined a club excursion to the New River Gorge National Park with 50 other hikers. There were ten hikes over a three-day weekend, and towards the end of this episode, you will hear from some of the members I met on the trail. Join us, experience a hike or two, and check out this welcoming, vibrant community. Anyone 18 and older can hike with the Cleveland Hiking Club. To qualify as a member, one must complete six hikes a year and pay a small fee. Once a member, all miles are logged, and milestones are celebrated. Some members have hiked over 50,000 miles with the club, demonstrating the enduring power of walking together in nature.
Resources:
About the Cleveland Hiking Club
Join the Cleveland Hiking Club
Hiking Schedule
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Holden Forest & Gardens is seeding Ohio's forested future through the Holden Seed Bank at the Holden Arboretum, which will soon celebrate its first anniversary. In this episode, we speak with Seed Bank Manager Kim Lessman about how this "restoration" seed bank works, how she became its manager, and how her work forms the core of new climate-fighting reforestation efforts across the region by eliminating a bottleneck in local tree planting efforts - the need for seeds. The Holden Seed Bank collects and processes seeds from native "workhorse" tree species like hickories, oaks, and hemlocks, which local nurseries grow into seedlings to support regional restoration projects and tree planting efforts. The work of the Holden Seed Bank is helping build resilient, biodiverse forests that can face our changing climate by providing thousands and thousands of seeds of local ecotype collected in our region. A Celebration of Seeds event will be held on August 8 at the Cleveland Botanical Garden and feature panelists from Holden Seed Bank, Cleveland Metroparks, the Pollinator Project, and Wild Ones Greater Cleveland to celebrate its one-year anniversary. Join us for all the tree-loving details.
Guest:
Kimberly Lessman, Manager, Holden Restoration Seed Bank - [email protected]
Resources:
About Holden Forest & Gardens
About the Holden Seed Bank
Celebration of Seeds - August 8 at the Cleveland Botanical Garden
Visit the Cleveland Botanical Garden and the Holden Arboretum
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In this episode, we share the recording from our recent May networking event at Great Lakes Brewing Company. This event featured a discussion about greenspace with three local leaders working on expanding greenspace in our urban core and increasing access and opportunities to experience nature through outdoor recreation, especially for our historically underserved communities. Our three speakers from Cleveland Metroparks, the local nonprofit SYATT, and the Trust for Public Land speak about improving our community and environmental health by creating more access to greenspace and the collaborations that amplify their work.
At 2:18 our first speaker is Kaela Geschke, the Ohio Parks for People Program Director for the Trust for Public Land. Kell speaks about some of the projects she is working on in our region to create and protect nature-rich places and the importance of that work to the health of our community.
At 14:18, our second speaker is Kelly Coffman, a principal planner with Cleveland Metroparks. Kelly speaks about the strategic planning effort to create greenways connecting our inner city areas with our lake and other parks to increase park access. Kelly also shares the latest details on the CHEERS project, which will transform Cleveland's east side Lake Erie waterfront.
At 27:30, our third speaker is Erika Hood, the Co-Founder and Director of Equity and Engagement for SYATT (See You At The Top). This local organization provides opportunities for Black and Brown communities to explore nature and outdoor recreation. Erika shares stories about the ski and scuba outings, camping trips, and other outdoor experiences she organizes for people in Cleveland's black community and how these shared experiences are so impactful.
Speakers:
• Kelly Coffman, Principal Planner with Cleveland Metroparks.
• Kaela Geschke, Ohio Parks for People Program Director for the Trust for Public Land.
• Erika Hood, Co-Founder and Director of Equity and Engagement for SYATT
Resources:
Cuyahoga County Greenways Plan
Cleveland Metroparks active Planning & Design projects
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In this episode, Sunny Simon, President of The Cleveland Vegan Society, joins us to talk about veganism and VegFest 2024, coming to Cleveland's Huntington Convention Center on Saturday, June 22. It's the largest Vegan festival in the Midwest, and it will be delicious, fun, and informative for vegans and non-vegans alike. The Cleveland Vegan Society created VegFest over 12 years ago to celebrate veganism and to encourage more plant-based eating. This year's festival features an impressive lineup of activities, speakers, cooking demos, a cruelty-free marketplace, a kids' activity area, yoga, and more.
Join us as Sunny shares about becoming a vegetarian and then a vegan thirty years ago and the environmental and humane reasons she advocates for the vegan lifestyle. She also clears up some misconceptions about vegans and offers tips for transitioning to a more plant-based diet. Everyone is welcome at VegFest, where over 13,000 people will gather to eat, have fun, and learn from speakers, including Sarina Farb, Christopher "Soul" Eubanks, Will Brooks, Dr. Keary O'Connor, and Gwenna Hunter. Cooking demos include chefs Chad Goodwin, Sonia Steele, and Anna Marie Harouvis. Whatever your dietary preferences, there will be something to satisfy everyone's tastes.
Guest :
Sunny Simon, President of the Cleveland Vegan Society and Cuyahoga County Council member
Resources:
Film - Peaceable Kingdom
The Cleveland Vegan Society
VegFest 2024
Top Vegan TV show
Bitchy Vegan Homo (vegan recipes)
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Can you build a house with mushrooms? You can if you are Chris Maurer, an architect, a mycologist, and a visionary. Chris is the Principal Architect at Redhouse Studio, an architecture firm based in Cleveland, Ohio. Chris and his partners are working to revolutionize how we house ourselves, not with bricks and mortar but with bio-bricks, a carbon-sequestering fusion of fungi mycelium and plant waste. This regenerative, humanitarian-focused "mycotecture" can grow buildings on and off our planet. Mycotecture refers to the use of mushrooms and other fungi for architectural purposes. In this episode, Chris introduces us to the possibilities of the fungi kingdom in creating sustainable building materials. Chris's work is far-reaching. His MycoHAB project in Namibia uses mycotecture to convert waste bush into food and housing. His Off-Planet NIAC project with NASA would convert space radiation into buildings on Mars. Back here in Cleveland, his BioCycler technology promises to recycle dilapidated buildings while remediating our lead problem and rebuilding our city. We are captivated by the power and possibilities of fungi, and you will be too.
Guest:
Chris Maurer, Principal Architect at Redhouse Studio Architecture
Resources:
Follow Redhouse Studio on Instagram and Facebook
More on the MycoHAB project in Namibia
More on growing buildings on Mars
More on the BioCycler using fungi to remediate waste and rebuild our city.
Watch the Fantastic Fungi documentary.
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Jim Ridge is the founder and executive director of Share the River, a non-profit that promotes Cleveland as a waterfront city and sharing everything that makes it a vibrant and engaging space for residents and visitors. In this episode, Jim talks about his upcoming Blazing Paddles Paddlefest on June 22, where hundreds of recreational paddlers and racers will paddle the commercial shipping section of the Cuyahoga River from Rivergate Park up to Cleveland-Cliffs Steelyard and back. Along the way, they will experience how the river has "risen like a phoenix" from its polluted past and is now attracting economic development, tourism, and community pride. Jim is one of our biggest river advocates, even being named Champion of the River by the Cuyahoga River Area of Concern (AOC) last year. He has much to share about how our past, present, and future are inextricably tied to our waterfront and its evolving health. Join us to hear his vision, plus some tips on sharing the river with freighters, about those YAKports, registering for Blazing Paddles, and more. You will surely find new ways to appreciate our tremendous natural resource for its recreational, commercial, and revitalizing potential.
Guest:
Jim Ridge, Share the River
Resources:
About Share the River
Follow Share the River - Instagram and Facebook
About the Cuyahoga River
Know Before You Go safety tips
Register for the Dave Vasarhelyi Memorial Recreational Paddle
Map of the lower Cuyahoga River (Federal Navigation Channel)
Cuyahoga River Water Trail
Cuyahoga River and Share the River News
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The podcast currently has 65 episodes available.