The above video was created by Skip Shuda, TTGM President, for the popular The Great Simplification podcast.
Transition Town Greater Media (TTGM) is a grassroots, bottom-up organization, part of an international network of Transition Towns, dedicated to improving community resilience, and promoting a more just, connected, and thriving local economy and society.
Since 2009, TTGM has been working with local and county governments and other non-profits in the Greater Media area to model and promote a cleaner, healthier way to live on this planet, limiting the pollution and waste we create, respecting the rights of nature and each other to live and flourish.
Our work is focused in six main areas:
- Protecting Biodiversity by planting trees and pollinator gardens with native plants, hosting Green Wagons (native plant “lending libraries”), promoting natural ways of controlling mosquitoes and other non-beneficial insects rather than using chemical sprays.
- Supporting Local Economy by running the Media FreeStore (since 2014) which promotes sharing resources rather than buying new and throwing out the old, hosting a Green Sunday Holiday Fair every November where local artists and craftspeople can sell their handmade goods directly to the public, and providing low-interest loans to minority- and women-owned businesses that provide real needs of their communities.
- Supporting Local Food by providing an online Local Food Resource Guide that lists nearby farms, farmers’ markets, restaurants and grocery stores that provide locally grown food, and organizing local farm tours and workdays so we can meet the farmers and learn about their work.
- Promoting Resilience from climate change by educating the public through a film series discussing the problems and possible solutions, promoting biking and transit in the area to lessen car use.
- Encouraging Inner Work to help us deal with the emotional and personal responses to the stresses of our society and to help us transform our relationship with our planet from an extractive, resource-based view to a collaborative, relational view, working with Nature instead of against her.
- Supporting Community Building with programs like Cool Blocks that bring neighbors together to learn how to reduce their carbon footprint and get to know each other at the same time, meetups for our Trans Youth to provide a safe space for them to meet and support each other, and with events like EcoFest that brings local environmental organizations together with the public in a fun, family-friendly learning experience, and Fire Circles where neighbors can hang out and share thoughts and experiences.
Our vision is a society that respects the beauty and many benefits of our natural world while living within its limits, and also respects and celebrates the creativity of our human family to face our common problems together. If you have similar hopes for the future, then please give generously to support our efforts! Thank you.