Hello Guacamole Friends!
Here we are, with our last email following along Jackson Browne’s tour, highlighting some great non-profit organizations along the way. There’s a lot here, but we hope you’ll read through the information about all of them… it’s so amazing and so inspiring!
And note: though Jackson’s tour is wrapping up, stay tuned, as we’ll have more important
things to tell you about later! But for now, let’s meet the groups on the last tour stops…
On September 20th, we’re in Walla Walla, in the state of Washington.
A great Washington group we want to shine a light on is Spokane Riverkeeper.
Spokane Riverkeeper is the only nonprofit in the Spokane area dedicated solely to the protection of the Spokane River watershed. We use clean water defense, advocacy and science as well as community education, outreach and litter pick up to protect and restore the health of the river and its ecology while promoting equitable access to a clean and healthy watershed for all. By supporting the Spokane Riverkeeper, you help us actively patrol for pollution, illegal discharges, and shoreline destruction and pick up thousands of pounds of litter. Your support also helps us educate youth and the public about our river. Here's a special video Jackson dedicated to all Riverkeepers!
On September 21st, we travel to Boise, Idaho and meet the International Wildlife Coexistence Network.
Let's share a special howl and roar for their dedication to helping communities coexist with wildlife worldwide. From wolves, bison, dingoes, bears and more, their team focuses on nonlethal alternatives to prevent conflicts, and on scientific research and educational awareness to protect the future of wildlife.
Learn more about their mission and how you can support their efforts at
Next, we travel to Sandy, Utah on September 23rd, and shine a light on Heal Utah – Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah.
HEAL Utah is an environmental policy nonprofit that works on clean air, clean energy, and radioactive waste threats. They have been around for over 20 years and work closely with communities, elected officials, and experts to find solutions to some of Utah's biggest environmental threats. One of HEAL's current main focuses is looking at ways to prevent further drying of the Great Salt Lake and the potential air quality issues resulting. HEAL does this by collaborating with various stakeholders, community members, and elected officials to get an intersectional view of this environmental threat. Besides working on the Great Salt Lake, HEAL is also working on renewable energy programs at city levels, expanding transit accessibility, and connecting community members to their elected officials to take climate action!
Check out @healutah on all major social media platforms and sign up for their emails for their latest updates and ways to take action.
www.healutah.org
While we’re in Utah, we share a “bonus” Utah group, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is the only non-partisan, non-profit organization working full time to defend Utah’s redrock wilderness. Our power comes from concerned citizens from Utah and throughout the nation who share the common goal of preserving Utah’s remaining desert wild lands, known collectively as America’s redrock wilderness. Since 1983, SUWA has been the only independent organization working full-time to defend that wilderness from oil and gas development, unnecessary road construction, rampant off-road vehicle use, and other threats to Utah’s wilderness-
quality lands.
Check out
www.suwa.org, and you can also follow them on Instagram, Facebook,
Twitter, TikTok, and on the podcast Wild Utah (available everywhere podcasts are found).
Last show of the tour! On September 25th we’re in Morrison, Colorado where we are so incredibly moved by Survivors Empowered.
Survivors Empowered is an organization founded by Sandy and Lonnie Phillips after the slaughter of their daughter, Jessica Redfield Ghawi and eleven others in the Aurora Colorado Theater Mass Shooting in 2012. They are a national organization created “By Survivors, For Survivors” – giving them “a soft place to land” after their lives are forever
changed by gun violence.
They provide support and referrals for services to survivors of violence, and connect survivors to a support network of other survivors in their area. They also educate survivors on how to tell their stories in a compelling way to speak to the issue of violence in their communities. Their Oral History Film project allows wounded gun violence survivors to archive their stories for research purposes. And, they have a Rapid Response Team made up of veteran survivors of violence, as well as a Survivors Toolkit, to guide survivors of gun violence through the pain of the first few weeks following a shooting.
Phew. So many good folks out there, doing good work in their corners of the world, on such a variety of critical issues. We are so incredibly inspired by them, and grateful for them. Hope can be a tough thing to maintain in these times, but all of the organizations along the tour have given us hope, over and over. We hope you have felt the same.
Again, more news coming soon! Keep an eye out for us!
Peace,
Tom, Paula, Diane and Jeff
