Dune Dreams & Peninsula Power: Climate Cafe in the Rockaways

Join us for this special edition Climate Cafe along the restoring dunes on the frontline of Hurricane Sandy!

Come to our gathering to process your climate emotions, grief, and future hopes in community and alongside the restoring dunes in post Sandy Rockaway and tying the work into the current Rights of Nature movement right here in NYC.The Climate Cafe will be hosted by Holes in the Wall Collective and Climate Cafe NYC at the Arverne Nature Preserve Welcome Center alongside the restoring dunes planted by Rockaway Initiative for Sustainability and Equity (RISE)- a community based organization created in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

The Climate Cafe will be co-facilitated by Gianna Lum– the co-founder of Climate Cafe NYC, Elizabeth Opurum– writer, grief doula and board member of Edgemere Alliance and The Garden by the Bay, and Carine Gibert– founder of Grounded In Motion, an interdisciplinary educational practice working at the intersection of deep ecology, the Rights of Nature movement, and the arts.

This Climate Cafe will also support us in connecting to the living world and the rights that nature inherently has and should be mirrored in our legislative bodies– with an opportunity to add testimonial for the upcoming Great Lakes and New York Waters Bill of Rights which could become the largest rights of nature legislation in the United States, following in the footsteps of Ecuador, Bolivia, New Zealand, Columbia, the US & Canada, Spain and Bangladesh– recognizing the vast indigenous leadership of these laws including the Maori, Waorani, Kichwa, Siekopai and so many more.

There will be tea and cookies for all. Feel free to bring something to add to the table. No nuts please.

Suggested donation is $10 to support our public programming, but no one will be turned away due to lack of funds.

Please dress warmly! We will be meeting indoors until 11am and then sitting outside on the grassy lawn between the fenced-in plant nursery to the left of the Welcome Center as you’re walking up. This is the precise location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/TtbWzoa6xqP7t3sq9

Facilitators

Gianna Lum is the co-founder of Climate Cafe NYC — a climate action community that hosts workshops on eco-anxiety, connects people to impactful local activism, and keeps everyone motivated through camaraderie, creativity, and fun. She earned a master’s in Climate and Society from Columbia University and has a background in climate science, communications, and policy. She has served in the nonprofit sector as a lead climate education facilitator and worked on climate models at NASA GISS. In her free time, Gianna enjoys figure skating, rollerblading, and experimenting with new sustainable baked goods recipes.

Elizabeth Opurum is a writer and Grief Doula working to bridge the gap between creative expression, identity, complex grief and trauma, and cultivating joy. She has a passion for spiritual and personal development grounded in reconnecting with nature, radical transparency, and introspective journaling. Elizabeth cultivates space for processing grief by hosting workshops through her business, Ms. Understood Soul Wellness. She is also the Board Secretary of Edgemere Alliance and The Garden by the Bay, who advocate for equitable access to blue and green spaces.

Carine Gibert founded and leads Grounded In Motion, an interdisciplinary educational practice working at the intersection of deep ecology, the Rights of Nature movement, and the arts. Her work bridges creative expression with systemic ecological awareness, weaving deep ecology, art, contemplative wisdom, and climate science into learning pathways that invite communities to ground themselves in their relationship with the living world.