Program areas at One Earth Collective Green Community Connections
One Earth Film Festival (OEFF), our flagship program, showcases thought-provoking environmental films and provides audience memebers with opportunities to engage in productive dialogue and take concrete action for our planet. Over 13 years, we have reached over 47,000 audience members and spurred an untold number of mind-and-heart shifts, as well as concrete actions, through our film festival programming. Our 13th annual festival brought rich in-person events and film programs to communities throughout Chicago over 7 days surrounding Earth Day in April. We held a lively launch party to kick off the festival, welcoming 149 attendees at the LEED Platinum Radio Flyer headquarters. We welcomed 1,881 attendees during the festival, reaching diverse Chicago Communities as well as locations in Oak Park, Park Ridge, River Grove, and Dupage/Kane County, and held two virtual film programs with attendance around the globe.
One Earth Youth Voices engages young people directly in the climate and social justice movements through art and activism. Our Youth programs include the Young Filmmakers Contest (YFC), which invites students in grades 3+ through post-graduate to create solution-based short films on issues surrounding climate change and sustainability. We received 400 submissions during the 2024 season, and showcased the winning films and filmmakers at awards ceremonies held in September and November. The Youth Advisory Council (YAC) uplifts local artists and young BIPOC voices to create and execute youth-focused programming during OEFF. Austin Grown engages high school cohort members to spend three seasons per year steeped in the agricultural and horticultural arts, culinary carts, and entrepreneurial arts.
One Earth Local ("OEL") works collaboratively to build and develop replicable models for environmentally sustainable and socially just communities in the greater Chicago metropolitan area. This year, OEL facilitated Climate Ready COOP (Climate Outreach Oak Park), to support Oak Park's climate action plan with outreach, communications, events, and invitations to take action. OEL also developed and delivered 30-minute environmental educational programs for 19 block parties across Oak Park, IL, reaching more than 150 residents with action-sparking information about green energy, native plant gardening, residential flooding and waste/recycling. OEL also led the planning implementation of two Food & Film Showcases highlighting sustainable urban agriculture and health disparities in Black, Brown and Indigenous communities for Austin Eats, a consortium of 26 organizations working in the Westside of Chicago. In 2024, OEL also worked with other leaders to begin a Westside Alliance for Climate Action, knitting together activists and community based organizations throughout Chicago's Westside neighborhoods to coordinate, support and amplify our collective environmental justice efforts.