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Oak Park Church Preaches the Green Gospel

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Oak Park Church Preaches the Green Gospel

Editor’s note: Euclid Avenue United Methodist Church will host an in person double feature for the One Earth Film Fest at 6:30 p.m. Friday, March 10: “The Falconer” + “Mardi & The Whites.” Doors open 45 minutes early to enjoy refreshments, visit with community partners, check in/register, and get best seats. Free registration here.

Located just 20 minutes by bicycle from Frank Lloyd Wright’s celebrated house in Oak Park, Illinois, Euclid Avenue United Methodist Church is the Village’s epicenter of sustainability initiatives. The 22,500-square-foot church was built in 1900 and remained the same, more or less, until the early 2010’s, when its leaders bit the green bullet. By 2014, they had completed two major energy-saving upgrades to the building. 

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Let's Get Loud About Illinois' Cook County Forest Preserves

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Let's Get Loud About Illinois' Cook County Forest Preserves

Here’s a legislative win that folks in Illinois and beyond can learn from, get excited about, and perhaps even replicate. On Nov. 8, 2022, Cook County Illinois voters sparked a major win for their Forest Preserves, approving an additional $40 million in annual funding for these vital public lands. This money will be used to manage and restore the 70,000 acres of prairies, forests, wetlands, rivers and streams; create local jobs; and improve the environment by providing clean air, water, and habitat for people and wildlife.

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Vote YES for the Forest Preserves

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Vote YES for the Forest Preserves

In this time of global warming, environmental degradation, and biodiversity loss, these lands do more than provide scenery as we drive by. They help clean our air, filter our water, prevent flooding, shelter hundreds of species of wild animals and plants (including over 100 that are threatened or endangered) and, all the while, entice us out to enjoy nature, with its known health benefits, any day we choose—no admission charged!

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Oak Park, IL, Announces Climate Action Plan; Call for Community Group Participation

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Oak Park, IL, Announces Climate Action Plan; Call for Community Group Participation

All around the U.S., communities are taking the lead on fighting climate change and building community resilience. Climate change is here, and it’s just a matter of time before some version of a Hurricane Ian or the Big Ranch Fire impacts any given community: intense storms, flash flooding, prolonged drought, extreme heat and other weather emergencies are intensifying each year.

This summer the Oak Park Village Board approved Climate Ready Oak Park, a comprehensive, long-range plan that provides a vision, goals and actions to make Oak Park more sustainable and resilient.

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Birds, Bees & Butterflies: Native Garden Tour Returns to Oak Park & River Forest

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Birds, Bees & Butterflies: Native Garden Tour Returns to Oak Park & River Forest

The annual West Cook Wild Ones garden walk “Birds, Bees & Butterflies: A Native Garden Walk” is back Saturday, July 23, from 1 to 5 p.m. The walk is designed to inspire and teach home gardeners about the beauty, ease and usefulness of the plants that have lived here for thousands of years, and the animals and insects that depend on them. Habitat loss is among the primary factors driving population declines of important local and migratory species. Each new native plant garden—no matter how small—can help support vital insects, birds and other wildlife.

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Remembering Monty and Rose + Why There is Hope

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Remembering Monty and Rose + Why There is Hope

Monty and Rose are the two beloved piping plovers that surprised the Chicago birding community by settling at busy Montrose Beach to nest and raise their young for three consecutive years. When they first arrived in 2019, the number of their endangered species had diminished to 70 nesting pairs in the Great Lakes region.

After Monty died recently after making the spring migration back to Northern Illinois, and after Rose did not return, we reached out to Bob for his thoughts and those of others in the birding community.