Welcome to The Ripple, a special newsletter created by Cincinnati Nature Center for people who want ideas, insights, and inspiration to act in support of nature and the environment.

Attend our first Common Good Gathering and explore upcoming volunteer opportunities!

Learn More to Do More: Explore upcoming training and discussion opportunities at the Nature Center and beyond!

Don't be fooled by disinformation. Learn how to inoculate your and your communities against it in this issue of The Ripple.

Get Inspired: Meet the Tree Lady
Cindy Kessler is the originator of Seeds to Trees, Inc., an initiative that offers ready-to-plant specimens of a variety of species native to southwest Ohio.

Get Inspired: Meet a Policy Advocate
Ted Bergh sustains his commitment to address policy change by spending time in nature where he feels spiritual growth and restoration. He believes that environmental action sometimes requires political involvement.

Get Inspired: A Solar Experience
Sheila Doran shares she and her husband's experience investigating solar panels for their home.

Get Inspired: Comfortably Using Less Energy
Connie O'Connor shares her experience with home energy efficiency, and how to do so while saving money.

Get Inspired: Protecting What She Loves
When Sheila Cox-Riley saw that human activities were threatening what she loved, she took action as a neighbor and citizen of her community.

Get Inspired: Meet a "Gleaner"!
The Society of St. Andrew (SoSA) uses volunteers to go to farms in the region to “glean” or gather leftover produce that is then delivered to local food banks.

Get Inspired: B's Creative Life
Brandy Blaylock volunteers for two elementary schools in the Princeton City School District, where approximately 150 students a year learn through her gardens about how to live with nature, explore it, grow it, and even eat some of it.

Get Inspired: Meet a Networker for Conservation
When JoAnne started volunteering to help Cincinnati Nature Center find homeowners willing to display their native gardens as part of the annual Garden Tour: Noteworthy Natives, she discovered neighbors joining together to plant native habitat in their own residential landscapes.

Get Inspired: Meet a Native Plant Influencer
Prior to completing the OCVN program, Steve Culver was unaware of the importance of native plants. He is now collaborating with neighbors to grow native species, providing seedlings, and much more!

Get Inspired: Meet a Dark Sky Advocate!
With a commitment to minimizing their own impact, Michael LaTour’s family has adopted practices that prioritize responsible lighting. He also works to spread ripples of change out into the community.

Get Inspired: Meet a Land Advocate!
When Mike Meldon joined Loveland's Tree and Environment Committee in 2017, he began to understand the importance of preserving and protecting natural land by removing non-native invasive species and replacing them with native species.
Over time he realized that focusing on public lands was not enough.

Get Inspired: Meet a Relationship Advocate!
Kim Fulbright promotes climate-change action, but she does it by building human relationships and fostering joy.

Get Inspired: Making Connections Through Common Interests
Bob Rack's communication skills may come as no surprise, as a retired Chief Circuit Mediator at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. What is surprising is the extent to which he has chosen to act on his environmental and civic-minded values.

Get Inspired: Meet the "Change Agents"
Beth and Bob Staggenborg live environmental advocacy and incorporate it into almost everything they do—be it tending their verdant indigenous garden or hosting meatless meals at the Cincinnati Nature Center.

Get Inspired: What's the Recipe for a Wildflower Meadow?
Why did these two professionals with a young child leave urban Cincinnati and adopt a relatively secluded lifestyle with long commutes to jobs and schools and limited cultural resources?

Get Inspired: Healthy Planet, Healthy Lives
The Ripple writer Bebe Raupe met with founding member of Plant-Based Healthy Cincinnati (PBHC) Chris Christensen to learn how she supports people in diet change.

Get Inspired: Paying it Forward
After retirement and as a new Nature Center volunteer, Steve Inglish found his current passion; it stoked his propensity to activism and shaped him as an influencer of, and mentor to, others.

Get Inspired: Citizen Activism is Key with Cardinal Land Conservancy
Many times, a shared problem will unexpectedly bring strangers together for the greater good.

In Memorium
‍This issue is dedicated to our friend and advocacy influencer Bob Rack.

Get Inspired: Community Advocacy and Protecting Local Greenspace
Cynthia Duval and other concerned citizens formed Preserve Burnet Woods, a nonprofit dedicated to sustaining the 89.3-acre park.

Get Inspired: Jon Sounders and the Turtle Telemetry Program
Jon Sounders’ story is an example of how a teacher can advance the cause of nature conservation while inculcating in young people ways of thinking and investigating that serve them into adulthood.

Get Inspired: Conscious Consumerism and a Labor of Love
Drausin Wulsin is Challenging Commercial Food Production with Grassroots Farming.

Get Inspired: Living Sustainability Fashionable
Amber Ostaszewski encourages people to help reduce negative effects on the environment by being mindful about their clothing choices.