ECCF gathers cross-sector leaders on June 12 for second meeting of group tasked with increasing resiliency

By Michelle Xiarhos Curran
ECCF Communications Writer

“The word ‘resilience’ gets tossed around a lot. But what does it really mean?”

This was a question posed by Michelle Rowden, the northeast regional coordinator for the state’s Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Program. She was a featured speaker on June 12 at the second meeting of the Essex County Climate Resilience Coalition, a group organized by Essex County Community Foundation (ECCF) to collectively prepare the region to face the impacts of a changing climate.

Climate resilience, Rowden said, is a community’s ability to prepare for, handle and recover stronger from climate-related challenges. And it’s the aim of ECCF’s newest effort on behalf of the region.

In the next five years, ECCF plans to raise and invest $3 million to support Essex County residents, nonprofits and communities working together to prepare for climate-related disasters and to innovate regional and sustainable solutions. This means protecting our region from flood risk (74% of our cities and towns are at risk from coastal, inland and storm surge flooding), addressing heat islands (51% of Essex County residents live in extreme heat), creating green jobs, lowering household energy costs and more.

Building a coalition is the critical first step to that work. And in the 12 weeks since ECCF announced its intentions to focus on the impacts of climate change in the region, the Essex County Climate Resilience Coalition has surged to 343 members. The group represents a broad range of community members, municipal planners, nonprofits, small businesses and funders.

“There is a real appetite in Essex County to tackle the issue of climate resiliency and disaster preparedness together,” said Kate Machet, ECCF’s vice president of systems initiatives and government relations. “We’ve done it in digital equity and the arts, and the region is ready to collaborate again on the complex issue of climate resiliency, which impacts our daily lives and has enormous implications for our future.”

At the June 12 meeting, Rowden indicated that partnerships and relationship-building are, indeed, key to this work.

“We definitely prioritize regional applications,” she said about the MVP program, which has awarded more than $180 million in grants to help Massachusetts cities and towns plan for climate change resiliency and implement priority projects. “We want our cities and towns working together.”

Rowden highlighted several MVP-funded projects that have been successful, in large part due to leveraging the power of partnerships. In Essex County, these include the two-year Resilient Newburyport Community Action Project and, in Ipswich, the relocation of the Ipswich Town Wharf Pump Station out of the local flood zone.

Bringing speakers like Rowden to present to the coalition is critical to learning, engagement and connecting local climate resiliency work with resources and opportunities available at the state level.

“Sharing lessons learned across the commonwealth at events like this is really, really valuable,” said Rowden.

As ECCF continues to grow the coalition, and learn alongside its members, the foundation is also gearing up to make investments that not only inspire new solutions, but also elevate successful work already being done in the region that could bs scaled across the county.

As part of that process, at the June 12 meeting, ECCF asked coalition members to share successful work happening on the ground in their own municipalities, what new projects could benefit from cross-sector partnerships and if there are promising projects that are facing significant barriers to getting started.

ECCF collected dozens of stories and data points from across the region.

“We are looking at where the biggest challenges are and where we can make the most impactful investments,” said ECCF President and CEO Stratton Lloyd. “We want to use all this information to ready the pipeline for investment. And if we’re successful, we’ll bring in even more funding and that’s the goal.”

“This kind of work is not happening anywhere else in the state,” he added.

Essex County has the opportunity here to build regional capacity to address vulnerabilities, learn from each other and create sustainable change focused on supporting those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

“All of you in this room have deep expertise and there’s a lot to learn from all of you,” said Machet. “We want to build that collaborative hub for investment and action.”

The next meeting of the Essex County Climate Resilience Coalition will take place on Oct. 1. To join this group of community leaders working towards a stronger Essex County, visit www.eccf.org/climate-coalition/, where you can also learn more about the initiative. To see an overview of ECCF’s vision and goals, click here.