How Citizens’ Greener Evanston Keeps the Movement Alive During A Global Pandemic

Picture via Citizens’ Greener Evanston

When the COVID-19 pandemic ravished its way through the Evanston community this year, everything was brought to a halt. As Northwestern students were sent home to brace for the oncoming lockdown, community activists like Citizens’ Greener Evanston president Rachel Rosner were faced with the task of balancing the fear of an unknown virus while adapting to a new online form of activism. 

Rosner explained that as a lifetime community member of Evanston, she knows firsthand that Evanston has always been an environmentally-minded community, so she was never really worried that the pandemic would affect the progress of CGE’s goals this year. She stressed that the large affluent population in Evanston could allow a dual focus on COVID-related stimulus packages and environmental activism.

This was tested when the city’s inoculation program for Dutch Elm Disease, a fungal infection spread by beetles that affects the oldest growing trees in Evanston, was going to be slashed because of a struggling city budget. 

In an effort to save the program, CGE paired with Evanston Community Foundation to create the Fund for Evanston Trees to raise money for inoculation. Together, they raised around 18 thousand dollars. 

“[The funding] actually turned the city council and made them realize that people really do care about this and they flipped the vote and restored that budget,” Rosner said. 

She empathized with the larger Evanston community that was devastated with unemployment and food scarcity during the pandemic, but she emphasized the parallels between climate change and COVID-19 as events that disproportionately affect marginalized communities. “We have to find a way to do both.  We have to,” she repeated. 

Online programming has presented more difficulty than members of CGE anticipated, mostly due to the new phenomenon Rosner described as “zoom fatigue”. This refers to the exhaustion that comes with looking at a screen all day with work and school now being held online. For this, the community organization has to pick and choose carefully which programs are important enough to host online, and which ones may be more effective via social media or email. 

CGE promotes an online event focused on repairing broken items on their Facebook page.

This summer, Rosner has found it to be less challenging to organize events, especially because their programs like Edible Evanston and Natural Habitat Evanston are already outdoor-based. The biggest challenge will be when winter comes.

Looking ahead with no end to the pandemic in sight, Rosner remains cautiously optimistic about the future of CGE. Although she had no concrete plans, she hopes she can continue to push the organization to “not be tone-deaf” and “engage with other issues” that will continue to plague the community during the crisis.