This week at Green Columbus I continued working on grant proposals and attended several meetings about Columbus’ new Zone-In initiative.

On Tuesday this week, my boss Shelly and I went to a meeting at Keep Columbus Beautiful’s facility. The building stores materials that Green Columbus uses for Earth Month and there is essentially any tool you could ever need and every trash bag size in storage. At the meeting, I met several key staff members at Keep Columbus Beautiful that have implemented successful changes in Columbus like giving individual trash cans to households instead of large dumpsters which reduces waste and the appearance of clutter in neighborhoods. It was awesome to hear from them about their work and plan the Scioto Sweep with them. After the official meeting ended, the staff showed us a costume they had that might be Green Columbus’ new mascot which was fun.

On Thursday and Friday, we met with FLOW and B.R.E.A.D. and both meetings led to a deep dive in the Zone-In initiative in Columbus. I learned quite a bit about zoning laws from these meetings and how they can make or break the development of vulnerable communities and sustainability efforts. The Zone-In policies are doing very little for both vulnerable communities and sustainability and Green Columbus is aiming to advocate for changes to the new zoning codes before they become law. I’m interested now about learning more about zoning laws and possibly taking a class about them in the future because they have a significant impact on healthy development of city residents.

Until next week,

Emma