Hey Ashford, in case you haven’t already see it, we’re thrilled to let you know that Jennifer’s letter to the editor was selected to appear in the Washington Post on February 9, 2025. She wrote this letter in response to a prompt the Post had included at the end of a news story about how people were dealing with political stress.  The prompt asked people to tell them how they were personally dealing with the stress, and her response resonated with the editorial board, as it should with all of us!

I threw myself into grassroots environmental organizing about five years ago as a way to deal with political stress. I volunteered to be the Pollinator Pathway [pollinator-pathway.org] organizer in my rural town and found two other volunteers to help. We encourage gardeners and landowners to use more native plants, avoid pesticides and reduce lawn sizes to help declining insect and bird populations. We provide free seeds and plants, give educational talks, maintain a demo native plant garden on town land, contribute to the town’s monthly newsletter, maintain an educational blog and set up tables at town events. I’ve even begun coordinating with organizers in surrounding towns to help find volunteers for invasive plant pulls.

Not only am I meeting new people who are also committed to this grassroots environmental cause, but I can also see it’s making a difference. More folks are becoming aware of the issue and are adopting better landscaping practices. Focusing on town government buy-in is our next step.

It’s been empowering and gives me hope for the basic decency of my fellow Americans — regardless of party affiliation. I’m also a firm believer that real change comes from the ground up. If we want people to care about these issues, it has to start locally, where they can see the impact of habitat loss, pesticides and invasive species with their own eyes. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it, and that’s the first step in getting people to do something about it.

Jennifer Sterling-Folker, Ashford, Connecticut