Community connections as a form of climate justice
Here’s how I planned and hosted a community BBQ for under $500
Want to get people to your event? Give them free hot dogs!
Last month, we held a community BBQ for less than $500 and had over 80 people attend with less than a week’s notice. I hosted the event representing the Climate Emergency Unit, and my friends and colleagues represented each of their respective organizations: Joanna Bull with Ecology Action Centre, Peter Perry with NS General Employees Union, and Melissa Marr with Wonder’neath Art Society.
The truth is, I’ve been struggling with maintaining the energy needed to keep up climate campaigning in Nova Scotia. Being an advocate for climate action and housing can be difficult when there are so many roadblocks along the way. This is the same struggle that many people face who are fighting to change the status quo. It takes a lot of energy to make change, and sometimes it feels like little change is being made at all.
Then about a month ago, I realized that what I had been missing was a sense of community. I knew that we need a ‘coalition of the willing’ to work on climate justice in Nova Scotia, but I could sense the people I’ve been working with are experiencing Zoom fatigue in the same way I’ve been. People are craving joy and fun!
That’s when the idea of a community BBQ came to mind.
The Planning
So, Joanna Bull from Ecology Action Centre and I sat down for tea at her house to talk about it. What is the biggest this idea could become? What is the smallest this idea could be? We decided that each of us should reach out to two people or organizations that we admire to see if they would be interested in planning a BBQ.
The event planning was off to a rocky start. The first person I called just didn’t have the capacity to even think about it (which seems to be a common occurrence in our fast-paced society). I emailed another person but I didn’t hear back. The wind left my sails. By the time Joanna and I had a check in the following week, I was feeling disheartened. But thankfully, Joanna had a completely opposite experience. The two groups she had reached out to were enthusiastic—one couldn’t participate because of limited capacity but wanted to be involved in the future… but the other, Wonderneath Arts Society, was in!
Despite Joanna’s prospects, I was still feeling spread thin and discouraged. We decided to take a few days to mull over - should we proceed? Do we have the energy? I was going away for a few days to meet climate activists in Newfoundland Labrador, so I let it simmer while I had inspiring conversations about community organizing in other communities.
A check in with a CEU teammate reminded me that the whole point of having a community BBQ is to energize ourselves, not to take energy away. It’s OK if this BBQ isn’t our top priority. With this perspective in mind, Joanna and I decided to proceed with minimal effort but thoughtful planning.
Choosing a venue was our next hurdle. Instead of an open-air park surrounded by heavy traffic, or hanging out in a paved parking lot, we decided to host the picnic in a park with lots of community facilities: the Dartmouth Commons. We had to pay a $90.00 licensing fee and made sure we had adequate insurance—once we got that, we were good to go!
About 9 days before the event, the four organizers (myself included) met to discuss the invites and the ‘to dos’. We made a list of things to have for the BBQ (shared below).
The BBQ
The community came together to make the event a success: a nearby church offered their communal BBQ, Joanna borrowed a neighbour’s truck, and her brother gave us some propane. But after getting the chips, lemonade, and art stations ready to go, the BBQ wouldn’t heat up. *Cue panic*
In true Nova Scotian form, six different people stepped up to fix it… and after the sixth intervenor and about 45 minutes, the BBQ was adequately hot again. Phew!
In the end, the BBQ was a success and I was so proud of what we had accomplished. I didn’t know or recognize the majority of the people who showed, which showed me that we were now interacting with whole new communities of people.
The number of attendees was in large part due to the large network of the NSGEU and their communications team. With just a week until the BBQ, they circulated the invite to their 30,000 members around the province.
We received lots of positive feedback and people asked if we’d do it again. I think yes - besides, we need to use the rest of the condiments!
Our work needs to include more joy, celebration and connection.
If we focus only on productivity and work, we reinforce the same systems that got us into this mess in the first place. As the song goes: give us bread and roses. Getting to know your neighbours is the best way to create a community that is strong enough to fight for justice and support each other. Our summers are getting hotter, housing is harder to find, food is harder to afford. Building and maintaining relationships is how we will get through the transition into a new society and economy.
Check out all the photos ⬇️
