CivicSpark Fellowship: Third Priority Deadline Extended to October 1st!
Visit our website to learn more and apply to become a CivicSpark fellow! Like us on Facebook to get the latest news and to see what our fellows are up to.
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Congrats, CivicSpark 2015-16 Cohort!
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After 11 months and over 78,000 hours of service to California's communities, CivicSpark's 2015-16 cohort has graduated! At the end of August, the fellows came together in Sacramento to celebrate their graduation from the program.
On August 30th, the fellows, along with Regional Coordinators, program partners, staff, and family, gathered in the Stanley Mosk Library and Courts Building to celebrate the successes and accomplishments of the fellows. The day began with a Poster Symposium, in which fellows had the opportunity to showcase the service they've done throughout the year. Fellows served on a range of projects, including the implementation of climate action plans, working on energy efficiency and conservation, electric vehicle, water conservation, and waste recycling, among many other projects statewide. To view the fellows' capstone posters, visit our Impacts Page.
The Graduation Ceremony came after, with speakers including Michael McCormick, Senior Planner for the Governor's Office of Planning and Research; Karen Baker, Chief Service Officer for CaliforniaVolunteers; Ashley Conrad-Saydah, Deputy Secretary for Climate Policy for CalEPA; and CivicSpark 2015-16 Cohort Speaker, fellow Hoi-Fei Mok. The ceremony ended with a reception and good-byes as fellows headed back to their regions to complete their service for the year.
The 2015-16 CivicSpark fellows accomplished so much throughout the year, and we look forward to the work they will do post-CivicSpark!
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CAP Implementation in Hayward
Fellow Gilian Corral is serving in the City of Hayward's Environmental Services office, working on climate action plan implementation. Her main project is modernizing the greenhouse gas inventory process and launching the SEEC ClearPath platform. She uploaded 2005 and 2010 community inventories onto ClearPath, added energy data from 2011 - 2015, and analyzed and visualized the data to show progress toward City Council energy and greenhouse gas reduction goals. She prepared a staff report on the inventory update and presented the report to the City Council Sustainability Committee. For her volunteer project, Gilee is working with GRID Alternatives to extend their affordable solar program to Hayward neighborhoods.
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Sustainability Indicators in Southern California
Fellows Bree Swenson, Mackenzie Bolger, and Mike Kloha worked with Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) to create the Green Region Initiative map, which serves as a resource for jurisdictions to identify current and potential progress areas, replicate best practices, and collaborate to increase sustainability in the SCAG region. The map presents policy and program data for all cities and counties in the region across 25 sustainability topics including climate action planning, greenhouse gas emissions reduction, green infrastructure, waste reduction, water conservation, and active transportation.
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California Adaptation Daily Digest
On September 7-8, various fellows attended the California Adaptation Forum in Long Beach, along with local elected officials, to learn about the tools and resources available to local governments to increase local resilience to climate-change impacts. Fellows had the opportunity to attend various sessions during the conference, and write summaries for the California Adaptation Daily Digest. To view the session summaries, click here.
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Question of the Month: "What has been the most memorable day for you over the past eleven months with CivicSpark?"
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Roman Johnson, Bay Area Region
A: "Excluding Mid-Year Gathering and Graduation days, one of my more memorable days occurred quite recently. The City of Benicia has been unveiling a bathroom fixture retrofit program and this past week we had our installers come out both to complete the retrofits and finish fixture assessments in the downtown Benicia restaurants. This consisted of me going door to door to restaurants, striking up conversations with owners and staff while our guys did their work to help them save water and money. Our contractors were great to spend the day with and it was a sweet way to get out of the office and get active."
Roman is a recent graduate of Santa Clara University where he studied environmental and political science. Since then, he has worked as an arborist, been involved in youth development with the Student Conservation Association, and engaged in NGO coordination with the Sustainability Institute in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Going forward, Roman intends to pursue field-based ecosystem research and journalism.
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Carrie Metzgar, Los Angeles Region
A: "The first day of the recent California Adaptation Forum was my most memorable day. For the previous eight months, I had the wonderful opportunity to help plan special activities and develop informational resources for the event. It was incredible to see everyone's hard work payoff and for the attendees to enjoy all the special touches made to this year's forum. And of course, the Climate Adaptation Trivia Night that took place later in the day will go down in history as my favorite CivicSpark memory. We all showed how much fun - and how competitive - climate change knowledge can be!"
A Southern California native, Carrie received a Bachelor's degree in Social Ecology from University of California Irvine and a Master's degree in International Planning with an emphasis in Governance for Urban Sustainability from University College London. As a result of her experiences studying environmental sustainability in several countries, she aspires to strengthen her understanding of the topic and have direct involvement in planning for climate change at the local level.
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Breanna Swenson, Southern California Region
A: "During the week of September 12th, the CivicSpark fellows at SCAG presented the map that we had been working on for the majority of the service year to SCAG staff. Hearing the staff's support and congratulations was so fulfilling. I will never forget how valued the staff made us and our time spent on this project feel."
A Southern California native, Bree graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a major in Anthropology and a focus on Global Health and Environment. She has worked on distributed energy policy, energy efficiency, and land use policy in St. Louis, DC, and Los Angeles and hopes to use her passion for environmental sustainability to continue this work in her hometown.
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CivicSpark Great Stories and News
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Post from the East Bay Times
"Monday's Piedmont City Council meeting began with a city proclamation naming Sept. 19 as 'Matt Anderson Day,' thanking the Civic Spark intern for his 11 months of service working with environmental issues."
Catherine Campbell-Orrock, Bay Area Region" I just want to tell you how I'm feeling: finishing up CivicSpark is surreal. For many of the fellows, this is our first full time job...."
Savannah Speerstra, Central Coast Region
"The CivicSpark year has now come to an end/ Starting a new job is just around the bend/ Resume complete, ready to send/ Hopefully many interviews to attend..."
Read these Great Stories and more at http://civicspark.lgc.org/blog. |
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Overcoming Financial and Organizational Barriers to Local Adaptation
Join the Local Government Commission and partners for an interactive, discussion-based workshop to better understand the financial and organizational barriers that local governments in California face in implementing adaptation strategies. This workshop will provide opportunities to learn about financing needs in California, practical opportunities for funding adaptation, what institutional and organizational barriers hinder work on adaptation, and how to move your organization to higher levels of capacity to advance adaptation. Participants will share their own experience and challenges with financing and implementing adaptation strategies at the local level.
Workshops are taking place October 4-26 in Eureka, Sacramento, Truckee, San Luis Obispo, and San Diego.
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About CivicSpark
CivicSpark is a statewide Governor's initiative AmeriCorps program implemented by the Local Government Commission in partnership with the Governor's Office of Planning and Research. Regional hubs host 68 fellows across California, building capacity for local government agencies to address climate change and water resource management. The 2016-17 service year starts on Oct. 9th, 2016 and will go through Sept. 2017.
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