Earlier this year, more than 45 Berks County leaders met with the Community Foundation to talk about community resiliency and environmental health. The leaders hailed from government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and local businesses whose work focuses on critical issues such as stormwater management, land conservation and preservation, health, transportation infrastructure, and the built environment.
We were joined by experts from the Institute for Conservation Leadership (ICL), who posed a series of questions aimed at determining ways the Community Foundation could deploy its resources to address environmental issues in Berks County.
Based on the answers to those questions, ICL made three recommendations:
- Support collaboration and create a series of regular interactions to ensure information and ideas are being exchanged.
- Create an innovation fund to put money behind collaborative and pilot projects that improve community resiliency and environmental health in Berks County.
- Pay for additional research when needed to ensure a full understanding of the often-complex geographic and human interconnectivity of local environmental issues.
We look forward to continuing this work and providing space for these important conversations to happen. For now, click here to learn more about this project and to read the full set of recommendations.
