- Support for this program was provided by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, the TomKat Foundation, and Connecticut Green Bank.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Across the state of Connecticut, people are investing their passion and energy to strengthen their communities.

- [Bill Heiden] Hartford's a food desert, far too many of its residents don't have access to quality food.

And we can create quality food right in their backyard.

- [Diane Scully] Sailing and the environment are one.

You can't have sailing without the wind, the currents.

And we wanna keep that clean and we are in a perfect position to do that.

- [Kerry Kincy] But as soon as I start to feel really defeated, someone emails me or someone comes up to the door and says, "Thank you."

And so that keeps us going.

- [Chris Schweitzer] We just don't think about our impact on climate.

We're being forced to stop that.

- [Narrator] These groups striving to raise awareness and bring about positive changes have another thing in common.

A partnership with Sustainable CT, whose collaboration has provided crucial support.

(cheerful music) - Aah.

- Hunger is inexcusable.

If you're hungry, we know the solution to that.

It's not complicated.

And so the fact that we have, you know, a billion people on this planet who are chronically hungry, is just inexcusable.

The long term goal of Levo is to end hunger.

- So I was a boy scout and as a boy scout you have to do a project for your community.

The idea being that you are creating something lasting and impactful for your community.

And so I wanted to do an international project.

And so I was basically looking around for anything that I could do that was gonna be cool, it was gonna be innovative, and it was gonna be international, and have a long term impact.

And so the guy who ran my boy scout troop had a hydroponic greenhouse in his backyard.

And so he walked me through the pipe system and how it worked, how to build it, and gave me a bunch of books on hydroponics, did some research.

And I was like, "Okay, he learned how to do this in the Dominican Republic.

Haiti has a greater need.

So my Eagle Scout project is gonna be a hydroponic greenhouse in Haiti."

The Boy Scouts did not, understandably, want to send a 16 year old to Haiti as a Boy Scout sanctioned project.

So Northwest Catholic, my high school at the time, was perfectly willing to have a hydroponic greenhouse put in.

So my official Boy Scout project was to build a hydroponic greenhouse here at Northwest Catholic and then to go down to Haiti as an extension with my father and my brother.

- Christian's older brother, Nate, joined us on that trip.

The three of us went down to Haiti, built the demonstration greenhouse.

But while we were there, we recognized, you know, the need is sort of easy.

The scope of the problem is easy, but one of the things we realized is some of the things that weren't being done.

And so some of the things that we did, we started to figure out ways to strip out the complexity of hydroponics to scale it down so that any family could use it.

Six years later it's still going.

We have a handful of Haitian employees that are continuing to do operation to this day.

- Simplified hydroponics.

The biggest benefit is that it is so water efficient, so space efficient, and it doesn't require soil.

- You can pack a lot of plants in a small amount of area.

Super easy for the average person to get into.

- We needed a community that was going to have enough space to hit enough scale, but be urban enough so there's enough compact.

So it was a balance between how close together are households, but how much space do they have?

And so the Blue Hills North Hartford neighborhood was kind of the perfect spot.

And so you can go to a family in Hartford, give them our Bokit system, which is just a hydroponic bucket, and they can be up and running within five minutes.

And that's all the training they'll ever need.

- So all you have to do is fill the bucket up, you'll add your nutrients, and then you put seedlings in these round holes.

- The reason that we use the Bokits is that they're the first round of communication and education, right?

This is hydroponics.

All you do is fill it with water, put the plants in and wait for them to grow.

There's no other effort.

You don't have to check it, you don't have to do anything.

- The lid goes on.

(lid clacks) And the plants.

- What's it called?

- It's just a bucket.

- It's called hydroponic.

- Water and a bucket.

- Now, now, now you said it will grow.

- Yeah, you're gonna have these lettuce, right?

- It look like this.

- Yeah, you know what, when did the, that I'd like to see.

- It started with my interest as being a grower.

So I went down to the Arbor Street location where they have tons of seedlings.

And once I met Christian and I found out what Levo was doing, I was all in.

These are the cucumbers for like the system.

So these are the three inch ones, but I think that for his, we should probably just do like the two inch ones, the smaller ones.

- A lot of green peppers.

- Oh, and Peppers.

- I was introduced to the program through Denise.

You know, growing your own food and stuff is starting to become more important with a lot of the things that's going on in the world.

So I think people are starting to get a good idea on, you know, what things we need to start doing.

Whether you live in the city or not, you know.

- I think it's gonna be very helpful for the community, especially with the prices of groceries nowadays.

You know, it's ridiculous.

You go in the store and then you buy something, you find out it's half bad.

- We can come and, I mean, it shouldn't take long.

- Do I need to move the car so you get more?

- So traditional agriculture is huge, and so we are trying to flip that on its head.

We're flipping that on its head.

So the idea is that instead of one major, huge producer, we will have a bunch of small producers.

So the idea is that you take a relatively dense urban center, like the city of Hartford, and you provide hydroponics to a bunch of households in a block, essentially.

So you take a hundred houses in a block and you provide them all with hydroponics and they all maintain their systems.

And then at the end of the week when it's harvest time, they drop their produce off at a pickup location.

That's aggregated, produce is then distributed back on a share basis to the growers in the community.

But it's also that extra, that aggregated surplus, is then also sold out of the community.

- And, and if you check it every day and you keep it up every day, then it's only a couple of gallons of water a day.

So it's easier to just maintain.

Sound Good?

- Sounds good.

(laughing) - Okay, any other questions?

- Thank you.

- What we've done that's different than traditional CSAs, traditional CSAs tend to be a farm out in the countryside that sells to an affluent population in the suburbs.

And urban areas, urban residents are generally left outta the equation.

And so what we've done is we've centered the CSA in the urban areas so that the urban areas are getting the economic benefit as well as access to the vegetables.

(gentle music) - So this is for the, let me take your stuff.

And if you can sign, this is for the produce that you dropped off today.

How much was in- - Five, five ounces.

It's just a different variety of kale.

We got a lot of kale.

One of the first conversations we have with new growers is where am I gonna put this Victory garden?

They don't realize it doesn't take as much space as they think.

They think that they can't grow.

"I've never grown anything before and I don't know how, I don't have the space to do it."

And once they get set up, they're just like, "There's no way that this works."

And then when I come see them in a month, they're like, "Look at what I grew."

They call me with their cucumber pictures and their pepper pictures and everything.

So they just can't believe it.

(gentle spirited music) - At the heart of Free Center is this founding idea that there are communities for which basic things have been removed and that there's a lack of access to some things that makes communities complete, make communities thrive and grow in a healthy way.

Free Center is committed to making sure that our communities, which are largely underserved communities, which are very black and brown communities, have access to all of those same opportunities.

We're there to insist on it, we're there to fight for it, and we're there to also recognize that we could celebrate victories and we can rest through the work.

We'd heard about a challenge that existed in the North End here of Middletown, where in our own backyard at McDonough's School, bike lanes had been painted on Spring Street.

The intention was nothing but good.

The unintended consequence of that was that we lost parking spaces for folks who often park right in front of their homes.

And there was a kind of tension that was around that, a kind of like disappointment that more was taken away.

- And so Free Center thought a way to kind of meet in the middle to talk about safety, but was to include the entire community in painting a street mural of local legends, some past, some current unsung heroes.

- Initially that included a very small lens on collecting oral histories and portraits for an exhibition here at Free Center and for a street painting project that we were going to do.

- One more.

(hands slaps) Nice.

High five.

That one stung, you did it hard.

(they laugh) - No.

- High or low?

- No.

- Too slow.

- So we built a popup booth and we're going to farmer's markets and we're showing up on the streets downtown and we're showing up on corners when kids get off of buses.

We're doing everything that we can possibly imagine to interact with folks and to hand them back this Polaroid that we take of them.

- You can only do so much with that picture.

(they laugh) - And we hand that to them so that they could take away this message that says, "You matter to us.

Hold onto this moment wherever you go."

And we've expanded that to include more and more of the community over time.

- Remember I was talking about Long River Village?

- Yes.

- And how they just got rid of it.

- Cookie lived there.

- Oh, right on.

- That's where I met Cookie first.

- You know, taking the picture and sitting down it's like, "Okay."

But you know, if it's gonna help, anything that they do and I'm all for it so.

I love you more.

Nice meeting you.

- Nice meeting you.

- And I'll see y'all guys later, okay?

- I'll see you later, Cookie.

We've invited the community to nominate someone in the neighborhood or in Middletown proper here in this area.

And the students and youth ambassadors of Spring Free will be learning how to take portraits, learning how to conduct oral interviews, and just getting together as a community to bring about an awareness to folks that are doing great things but not always recognized.

- We were there every single day in the summer, every single day.

- And I think that that's something that the North End has always had lots of families, lots of children.

- Yep.

- Just lots of good people surrounding.

So I interviewed Joanna just to ask her a couple questions about her involvement in the community.

And how the North End has changed over the past 25 years in her space here.

And what she appreciates most about Middletown and what she appreciates more about the North End and her experience here.

- And after this, we're gonna stand in the middle of the street after these two cars go and capture this queen of High Street.

- Sweating her brains off.

(chuckles) - I think that it's important that people understand where the North End was rooted from.

And I think it's important for people to recognize what it was like before this community has developed into what it is.

And I think it's important to interview someone that has experienced it first hand.

And it's nice to learn some history about her and life here.

- Up just a little bit.

Up, chin up.

And relax now.

- We talked to people on social media and said, "Who's making a difference and how?"

We asked folks about what community means to them.

- Thank you my friend.

- Oh, I don't photograph good at all.

- I love you, you photograph beautifully.

- No, I don't, but that's okay.

You're a sweetheart.

- We have all these beautiful portraits of the community that will have an exhibition at Free Center.

There were folks that stood out and they're on the street now.

We made the silhouettes, everyone's painting them, and so we're putting it right here in front of the walkway.

Just jump in wherever you fit in, okay?

If you wanna be helpful.

- At the heart of Free Center is this idea of we.

We try to de-emphasize the I and try to pay attention to what benefits all of us.

In that we do believe that there is a we in community.

It's based in that.

(gentle music) - The thing about climate change is who's the constituency?

Like who, this week, really needs climate change dealt with?

If you're talking about safety or police, that's to be very urgent.

Schools, school funding, hiring teachers, very urgent.

Roads fixed, potholes, like, these are all things that are today and people want.

Climate change is not like that.

It kind of takes mature adults to say, "All right, we gotta deal with this and put resources into it now, 'cause we'll be paying later."

- As a coastal city, New Haven will be prone to more floods.

We're also, since we're inner city, the levels of pollution are really dangerous.

Like, living in areas with high air pollution is linked to various physical and psychological issues, ranging from asthma to anxiety.

- We grew up in a culture that, really, we make choices every day and we just don't think about our impact on our neighbors, our climate, our ecosystems.

We're being forced to stop that.

Like, our choices are really massive destruction and climate chaos, which is not hyperbole, like, it's really happening in small places around the world today.

- Good afternoon.

My name is Adrian Huq and I'm an organizer with the New Haven Climate Movement Youth Action Team and a New Haven Public Schools 2020 graduate.

I'm also the Youth Coordinator at the Climate Health Education Project in New Haven.

We feel it's been definitely a issue of not prioritizing climate change, which is understandable.

There's been a lot of barriers in the way in these last couple years with Covid and you know, so many other issues that municipal staff have to deal with on a daily basis.

But overall, we're not seeing that climate change is a priority on the city level.

And we really want them to put their money where their mouth is and continue to invest in climate change every fiscal year.

Especially with the budget season that's about wrapped up in June.

We didn't see any climate funding so far and I'm hoping that's not the case for this fiscal year, but we're hoping that they put resources towards this, they put staff towards this and we see the projects that we've been pushing for for years.

(gentle music) - We're trying to get people to really step up in 2022.

- Wonderful, thank you.

- So on a hot day, you know, bringing out our car chalkboards and other art to connect with people that, here's something concrete that really is heating up the planet.

I mean, people know like if you're standing around traffic, there's a lot of heat coming off the cars, all the exhausts.

And I just learned that 60% of every gallon of gas just goes into waste heat and only like 20% of a gallon of gas actually moves you someplace.

So really it's a very wasteful transportation system.

And the size of the vehicles, right?

Tons and tons.

But we do the art events like, you know, like chalking, because people connect in different ways and we find that people are more interested, more relaxed about, it's not just facts.

- The model American puts in 1600 hours to drive 7,500 miles, which comes out to be less than five miles an hour.

That's why the largest polluter contributing to climate change in the US and the entire world is transportation.

I think it's very important to educate people on climate change, but especially the youth, the people that are still in school, while we still can.

Because we're the ones that have to solve all of our climate problems and really fix what's happened.

- I am involved in a couple different committees.

So mainly the Climate Education Committee where we hold the New Haven Board of Education accountable for climate education and otherwise climate action and greenhouse gas reduction by the school district.

Recognizing that the school district has a really unique stance in the community of being able to reach all these students and community members and family members and parents.

And also having their own big footprint in terms of all their school buses.

You know, getting students meals every day.

It's a huge operation.

And so we also wanna see them be able to create a more eco-friendly district.

- [Group] Climate change has got to go!

Hey, hey!

Ho, ho!

Climate change has got to go!

Hey, hey!

Ho, ho!

Climate change has got to go!

- I would like to see some more investment in climate action through investing in transportation, better ways for people to use public transportation, investment in electrification of Yale buildings, school buildings, and of all the public vehicles and other vehicles in New Haven.

Climate change is something that impacts everyone.

And there's really no way to get around it knowing that my generation is gonna be hit the worst by these impacts.

So I just wanna really inspire other people to make a difference while we still have time to.

(lively uplifting music) - Ready.

- Sailing is an interesting and very different sport than most sports.

Baseball, lacrosse, soccer, you have a team.

When you're out on a sailboat, you're by yourself.

And you are competing against other people, but you are responsible for everything that happens on your boat.

And so it really teaches things about responsibility, it teaches things about accountability.

Something's gonna break.

Your mom's not gonna come out and fix it.

You're gonna have to figure out how to fix that.

And it really makes kids, I think, stronger, more independent.

A lot of skills other than just learning how to sail a boat.

The mission of the Sailing Academy is to instill in children and adults a love of sailing an appreciation of sailing, a knowledge of sailing, as well as an appreciation of the environment and the stewardship of our natural resources.

My goals is to make sure that we make sailing available, not just to kids with wealthy families, but to all kids.

- So we can teach kids to take a dinghy around a course.

We can teach them when to pull something in, when to pull something out.

We can teach them about how boats work, but there's always that hidden curriculum that we wanna make sure they get.

And that is both an appreciation for what it means to be a sailor and that idea of self-sufficiency and that sense of exploration and confidence in yourself.

The ocean is such a fascinating and integral part of our world, our biosphere, our ecosystem.

It's really important to foster that in the kids.

- So following this idea of marine debris, I have a box over here, right here, full of common marine debris.

We have some plastic bottles, we have a fork, a styrofoam plate.

Learning STEM in sailing is really important because it fosters an understanding of not only sailing, but also the environment and the effects the sailor has on the environment.

So just having the sailing knowledge is helpful, but understanding the physics of your boat, how to tune your boat, down to the engineering and math portions, makes you a more effective racer.

Learning about the science of the oceans that you're sailing on, helps you understand the nature and the ecosystem that you're sailing on.

We're really emphasizing sustainability and being mindful and environmentally friendly stewards of the ocean.

So the boat, Effie, was chosen for the sustainability week because of the sustainability efforts on the boat.

One key feature of Effie is that it has solar panels on the boat and an electric motor.

So this boat's completely off the grid.

- Where do you want these?

- I learned how to sail at Niantic Bay Yacht Club before the program was Niantic Bay Sailing Association.

It was just part of the club.

And when I was seven or eight years old, I started sailing optimists here and learning to race and sail on my own.

This is my boat, her name's Effie.

It was my great grandmother's middle name and my grandmother named the boat.

It was my grandparents' boat that I took over.

And I've been living on Effie for six years.

The first change I made was I didn't want to run the engine for the power needs, the refrigeration, and household needs of the boat.

So I put solar panels on and I ran like that for four years, five years.

And last year, when I started having some engine problems.

Engines on these boats die before the boat does.

I took out the diesel engine and I put in electric power and upgraded solar panels, so I'm entirely emissions free.

The adventure part of it, the lifestyle part of it, being someone who lives on boats and works in the boat world, that's a very different world from the racing, private ownership world.

And whatever kids get excited about, that's what we're interested in stoking.

- Sailing and the environment are one.

You can't have sailing without the wind, the currents.

And we wanna keep that clean and we are in a perfect position to do that.

We use it every day.

We appreciate it, we love it.

And when you love something, you want to take care of it.

- All right, are you guys finalized?

Students really need to learn now that being environmentally friendly is a way for them to protect the environment now and for their future.

And that environmentally conscious behavior also spreads to every other aspect of their life.

So learning to love the environment means to love the community they live in, to love the people around them.

I truly believe that a love for the earth means a love for the people.

- So I ride my bike here from downtown Niantic and basically I wait for like all my friends to come and for class to start.

We talk about like what we're gonna do for the day, like what types of courses in the sailboat we're gonna do or like down one up one stuff.

And then we rig our boats and we bring 'em down to the dock and we launch.

- I think these lessons are important because they help you to know like what's in the water and like how to do stuff and help the environment.

- I definitely feel like I'm getting better since two years ago, since I didn't know how to sail.

You know, if you threw me on a boat, I don't think I'd do very well.

I'd probably, you know, I at least try, but I probably wouldn't get far, you know.

- I used to be like scared to sail, but now it's like, since I know more, since what they've taught me, it's been better.

I just feel better about sailing.

- Our hope as an organization is that these kids live a life here on the water.

And they participate in sailing.

They take care of our community and they raise kids to do the same thing.

- I want kids to walk away with a passion for sailing.

It's a very diverse world of interest.

You could be, you can have a lot of different, there are a lot of different avenues you can take in sailing.

Whether kids just want to go out on the weekend and have families out or something like that.

That's one thing.

Whether they get interested in the maritime world, and in the industry, it's a really great career choice that not a lot of people have access to.

And I want more people to realize it's out there.

(upbeat music)