March 29, 2024

Seekonk Family Environmental Coalition

Posted

July 20, 2022
Seekonk, MA - A Seekonk family is starting a Sustainability group to serve Seekonk and the surrounding Providence Metro community and is looking for collaborators and members. The Seekonk Family Environmental Coalition aims to bring people together around the topic of Sustainability, with a focus on supporting whole family efforts.

Kathleen Nasti, Founder, moved to Seekonk with her family last year and has created this group for a few reasons: as a way to support her own sustainability efforts, continue to grow her environmental knowledge, connect with the community on these topics for community knowledge sharing, and, most importantly, to build an educational platform for kids to develop sustainable practices and values in their own life along witha deep understanding and respect for the importance of this work and their attention to it.

“My family and I were introduced to the magnitude of the environmental crisis while living in Shanghai, China, where I gave birth to my first son. The daily smog and air quality warnings made the topic of pollution inescapable – especially as a new mom leaving the house each day with a newborn. Some days, the smog was so thick it felt like I could grab it and shape it into a ball. Trash was also an obvious issue each day. My time in China focused my environmental attention and, when I returned to the US, it became easier to see the problems and hear the stories of this environmental crisis.”

Nasti has been a professional dance artist, educator and non-profit leader for 20 years. She holds an MBA with a focus in Entrepreneurship and a certificate in Project Management as well as an MFA in Dance Performance. She and her family lived in Sharon, MA, prior to Seekonk, where she became very involved with the vibrant, local sustainability group, Sustainable Sharon Coalition. The relationship led her to the role of Recycling and Composting Coordinator for the Sharon Public School District, while her older son was in Kindergarten. She initiated composting in the five schools of the district and facilitated the launch of the residential composting program, through Black Earth Composting, for the town. She also led school and town educational programs and infused the arts into these experiences, several times working with Providence born filmmaker, Manya Glassman, to create beautiful and educational archival films of the children’s environmental work.

As a new transplant to Seekonk, Nasti’s hopes for this first year are to facilitate community brainstorming and create foundational steps for this organization, i.e. simply bringing people together to discuss interests, needs, and wants for our community and then organize skillsets, knowledge, and expertise in order to form working groups and action plans.

Two concrete goals for this year are: 1) to catalyze the path to residential composting in the area and 2) create children’s educational programming. We are working with Black Earth Compost, once again, and hoping this work can facilitate a route in Seekonk by the end of the year. Under the family-led umbrella, we are also hoping to begin monthly meetings and work toward a Sustainability Fair (Spring 2023) and a Youth Sustainability and Entrepreneurship Fair (Fall, 2022/Spring 2023).

If you would like to get involved or learn more, please visit us on the website at www.seekonkfec.org  and/or contact Kathleen at SSFAMILYENVIRONMENTALCOALITION@gmail.com 

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