Beyond Today (2003-2013, not active currently)
Beyond Today was a community of environmental, justice, and peace activists in Chicago, mainly in the neighborhoods of North Center and Lincoln Square. Beyond Today was formed when the war began but our members are largely overlapping with the Riverbank Neighbors and Waters Garden community.We had a large email list. ~600+ but it would be more accurate to say that perhaps 50-70 identify with the group and attended events a few times a year. One of our projects was the Waterside Co-op, which had served as a community center and nexus for organizing energy. The Co-op was established in fall of 2005 and ended in fall of 2013. The house played host to many educational workshops, movie nights, music nights, protest sign making parties, potlucks, community meetings, and hosted the Beyond Today intern program for 3 years. Beyond Today was a member of the Jobs wish Justice coalition. We attended events to support workers rights, transit funding, healthcare funding, and related issues in the Chicago area. We helped organize and participated in the protest at the coal power plant in October 2009 as part of the 350.org event. Our organizers were also part of the TerraFirma Chicago TV project which makes environmental programming for public access cable.In recent years, we’ve organized events, workshops,and workdays including:Urban Foraging and Food Preservation by Nance KlehmWild Fermentation by Sandor KatzOrganic Gardening and Seed starting by Nancy BenjaminPrescribed Burn training with Pete LekiBats as part of our ecologyOrganic Mosquito Management with Julie Petersonover 50 Green Dinners, which was a dinner conversation series with guided discussion to act as a survey of knowledge, concerns, questions, and priorities of our community members regarding their efforts to live a sustainable lifestyle in our urban environment.Protests including anti-war, pesticide, health-care issues, workers rights, clean water, coal plants/air pollution, global warming, and more.Petitions, phone call campaigns, letter writing campaigns, and moreNative ecosystem restoration workdays along the Chicago River (actually Riverbank Neighbor events) and participating as part of the North Branch Restoration Project at Sauganash.One way to get involved is to come to Waters Community Garden on Wednesday nights 6-sunset. You can help garden and meet us. Not everyone in the garden is involved in Beyond Today, but many are.We do have a core team of 3-15 people.