One of RCL’s core values is to be a sustainable league. Right now, that looks like:
designing a new hall with lots of energy saving features
installing a new bike rack in the spring
hosting workshops and presentations with sustainable themes
partnering with local organizations to help residents build relevant skills
planting native species in our garden boxes
hosting a Community Garden in West Ritchie
organizing Climate Connector meetups
In 2024, the City of Edmonton launched Neighbouring for Climate, a program designed to help bring neighbours together to take local action on climate change. The city and the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues have been encouraging leagues across the city to take a leadership role in the program. With RCL’s interest in sustainability, we thought it would be a natural fit, and organized our first “Climate Connectors” event in February 2025.
Neighbouring for Climate toolkit
The cards included in the toolkit describe a variety of climate-action ideas within 6 categories. Some examples are: grow your own food, create an emergency plan, conduct a home energy assessment.
The city includes other helpful resources like postcards, conversaton tips, posters and a guide book. But they are encouraging each community, street, or group of neighbours to work together to decide on the next steps that make the most sense for them.
The Ritchie Community League hopes to use this program as a tool to help:
connect neighbours who are climate champions
generate ideas for events or actions that can be taken on by our volunteers
recruit volunteers who are excited to help out in their community
RITCHIE CLIMATE CONNECTORS
We started this project with a small workshop on February 9, 2025. Hosted by Lisa (Secretary) and Hanna (Director), we invited people from Ritchie and the surrounding communities to join us for an afternoon of learning and idea generation.
Everyone in the group got to read through the Neighbouring for Climate cards, chat with our neighbours about the reality of implementing ideas, and brainstorm ways we could start working on local solutions within the community league framework.
It was a fun afternoon with a group of folks from diverse backgrounds, ages, experiences. We generated a lot of great ideas, brainstormed solutions to potentials barriers, and set ourselves up for success as we move to the next stage of this program.
LOCAL IDEAS - LOCAL SOLUTIONS
Neighbouring for Climate offers suggestions and tips, but each community contributes different skills and assets. This has a huge impact on what types of adaptation strategies we can pursue, and how the league can offer us support. That’s where the local solutions part comes in.
Here are a few of the ideas our group generated at our first event:
host a harvest party for neighbours to share food they grew in their gardens
outreach to our neighbours
organize a swap for household items and personal skills
start a “Ritchie Classifieds”
seed sharing event
Ritchie Community League’s plan for this program – and for our future sustainability goals – include:
forming a sustainability committee
hosting solutions-focused events for all of our residents
connecting community leaders with each other
joining with our neighbouring leagues to accomplish some larger projects to benefit all our residents
The ideas part has been “easy” so far, but we are on the lookout for folks who have the time and energy to put these ideas into action and to connect with each other to keep the momentum going.
Is that you?
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QUESTIONS? COMMENTS?
Please email secretary@ritchie-league.com with your ideas for future Climate Connector events, or if you would like to lend a hand getting some of these initiatives off the ground.