Climate Solutions’ annual dinner presentations are always inspiring, and this year’s event, held last week in Seattle, was exceptional. Keynote speaker Wawa Gatheru (founder, Black Girl Environmentalist) encouraged attendees to take inspiration from the past—specifically the roots of our struggles for social change in the civil rights movement—to find the energy to move forward as climate activists at a time when this work is making many of us feel understandably fatigued, and wondering if real change is possible.

Wawa invoked the traditional Ghanaian concept of Sankofa: “Sankofa asks us to fly forward with our eyes open to what is behind us—not because the past contains all the answers, but because it contains knowledge we cannot afford to lose. The civil rights movement left us blueprints not for a different struggle, but for this one. The same insistence that no community is disposable, that justice is not a luxury to be deferred until conditions are favorable, that the most effective strategy centers the most marginalized—these are not historical lessons. They are operating instructions.”

Participants experience Climate Solutions’ annual dinner as a critical community builder, assembling people all working dynamically to make a difference on climate. It’s a space for networking, for sharing frustrations, for nurturing the roots of our resilience by recommitting to our shared values of justice and integrity, and above all, for hope.

In his remarks, Executive Director Gregg Small described how Climate Solutions is evolving to meet the challenges of the moment—leveraging and expanding beyond our established record of passing transformative climate policy, to support the implementation of clean energy solutions on the ground: “making it real.”

In her remarks, Climate Solutions Deputy Director Savitha Reddy Pathi invoked Climate Solutions’ core value of integrity, noting that Integrity was also the name of the NASA spacecraft that accomplished a historic lunar flyby last month. [It] “was a powerful reminder to me that there are more of us who believe in science, in curiosity—and in love—than there are those who want to destroy so many things we hold dear for our democracy and for our planet.”

Event speakers also included Climate Solutions board member and former Washington Governor Jay Inslee and board chair Emiko Atherton.

The day of our annual dinner included other convenings. We hosted a reception for local BIPOC leaders and staff who met and spoke with special guest Wawa Gatheru.

We also convened a clean energy leadership roundtable with Governors Tina Kotek and Bob Ferguson, Suquamish Tribe Chair Leonard Forsman, and leaders from business, labor, clean energy investors and NGOs, to talk about how we can do better in deploying solutions in our region.

Check out our gallery of event photos, courtesy of photographer Brandon Baker and Climate Solutions.

I have deep gratitude for our speakers, our sponsors, table captains, hosts, board and staff, technical crew, volunteers, and supporters for making this event possible. And thank you to the Good Co band for leading us into the ballroom and bringing so much energy to kick off our event.

Climate Solutions’ supporters are an integral part of our organization, and we are deeply grateful if you have already donated towards our $350,000 goal. If you haven’t had the chance to make your donation yet, it’s not too late.

If you are interested in making a gift at any level, I welcome you to take a moment to donate. And, I personally hope you will join us by donating $500 or more and become a member of our Brighter Futures Club.  If you can afford to give $500 or $1000 or more, please do. Many people wish to give at this level, but maybe this year they can’t. But maybe YOU can. Consider stretching your gift and help lift us all up together. You can give as one big gift or stretch your gift by donating monthly. You sign up once and never have to think about it again.  Or, you can donate stock or through your Donor Advised Fund or IRA.

Together with the Climate Solutions team, I am deeply grateful for this community and for our collective strength. For being willing to stand with us and to be counted at this moment in our country’s history.

Wawa Gatheru left us with this reflection: “We have never known a perfect world. And yet, we have never needed a guarantee of success to believe that a more just and livable world is worth building. Because the future is not something that arrives fully formed. It is something that is being constructed through the choices that are made now.”