By Caroline Fraser

What is it?

For those who don’t already know, Climapalooza is our annual climate action rally and benefit concert. Each September, Climable hosts this event to raise awareness about what we do, promote our work, and bring the community together to celebrate climate action. A variety of local artists and bands will be performing: Sweet Petunia, Bedsweater, Chowder, and Kaylan Bovéll-Royston. Along with live music, the event will have raffles, lawn games, and guest speakers.

Why is it important?

The funds raised from this event go directly to Climable’s general operating funds, which support our internal operations and allow us to do critical, community-based work that is not funded by grants. Climable works with environmental justice communities, which are neighborhoods or communities, composed predominantly of persons of color or a substantial proportion of persons below the poverty line, that are subjected to a disproportionate burden of environmental hazards and/or experience a significantly reduced quality of life. The community-based organizations we partner with support their communities through numerous services, so they often do not have the capacity to complete all the day-to-day work our clean energy projects require. Additionally, they tend to be wary of predatory energy companies that target environmental justice communities. So, the work we do in communities must be grounded in trust from both the community organizations and community members themselves—our work moves at the speed of trust, as the saying goes. To maintain this trust, we take on work outside of our grant funding to ensure all our projects are completed as each community wants and needs. In turn, community members feel comfortable sharing input on the energy needs and desires in their neighborhood. Your donation would support these critical efforts!

How can you support?

You can support Climable by attending Climapalooza VI on September 16th, from 6-9 PM, at University Park Commons in Cambridge, and by participating in our fundraising activities, becoming a corporate sponsor, and spreading the word about the event. Additionally, we are in need of volunteers to help our tiny but mighty team with set-up and sound equipment transportation, event facilitation, and photography. We sincerely appreciate all efforts of support!

We would like to thank ShirtMax for their generous T-Shirt donation that has allowed us to make Climapalooza merchandise – for the first time ever! That’s right, this year we will be selling limited edition Climapalooza 2023 T-shirts and tote bags! A special thanks to Janet Chang for creating the amazing designs!