Celebratory Potluck
Exactly ten years ago, my husband and I baked a dish to share, piled into our car, and headed towards Bar Harbor for the first MDI Climate Solutions potluck. I was around eight weeks pregnant with our daughter, our first child. Food wasn’t especially appealing at the time, but the prospect of coming together with other community members to talk, collaborate, and regain a sense of agency to do something about climate change was extraordinarily compelling.
I still remember the warmth of that room as it filled with light that pressed out into the darkening evening and with voices, excitement, and delicious aromas (yes, even to someone with consistent low-grade nausea!). As we all loaded up our plates and settled in, the sense of anticipation was palpable. We were there to start something impactful, and everyone knew it.
A decade has passed since that fall of potlucks that started A Climate to Thrive. So much has happened in those ten years, and, this fall, I find myself once again longing for a sense of agency during a time of deep frustration. I hear this longing voiced by so many others, and in the longing are echoes of the same three feelings that launched the initial ACTT potlucks: profound concern about what is happening in the world, frustration at a feeling of helplessness, and a desire to regain agency.
In the Fall of 2015, we found that agency, over shared meals and through big ideas that were quickly translated into action. We also found that we were not alone. While our specific concerns, ideas, and beliefs might have differed, we were united in our desire for a liveable future, our love for the place we call home, and our commitment to our children and grandchildren.
We hope you will join us on October 3 at Beech Hill Farm as we come together for a local food potluck. The potluck is a celebratory marker of those early meals ten years ago that started ACTT’s journey. But, even more so, the potluck is offered in response to the desire we are hearing for gathering spaces in which we can come together as a community, enjoy each other's company, conversation, and ideas, and share a good meal. Yes, we will offer a few words meant to jumpstart thinking about what might be next and needed in our community as we collectively navigate a changing climate. We will have spaces available to creatively capture and share any ideas or insights you’d like to offer. But, for the most part, we will focus on time together, on the food, the music, the lawn games (!!), the beautiful setting, and all that is possible when we gather.