Friends—it’s been quite a 2020. 

We rolled into this new decade full of plans, schemes and dreams never guessing that Earth Day 2020 would find us in the middle of a global pandemic. 

And now, well into the fourth month of virus anxiety and the second month of stay at home orders, all those plans and schemes and dreams look wildly different. Every part of our lives look different. And every part of our lives have condensed in space and time. 

Every day, we are parents, small business owners, educators, community members, employers and selves—all at the same time and within the same square feet. 

Yet, just as our world has shrunk to the size of our own literal backyard, it has expanded in ways we might never have guessed. 

At the factory, we rearranged operations to safely continue shipping.

In our homes, without access to the instant gratification of every whim, we’re looking differently at our patterns of consuming and spending.

In our beloved community, we looked to serve those who serve us, and found a deep need to help protect those on the front lines—from baristas to health care workers—by sewing masks.

Read about the Sockers for Service Workers project.

Expanding wider, we see a city pulling together to feed each other and protect the most vulnerable. Across cities, across states there’s fewer cars, less trash, less waste, less noise.  

Across lands, wildlife is taking to the streets and meadows and forests, reveling in the freedom from us. Across skies pollution is clearing. 

On this Earth Day 2020 we are as big on the inside as we are on the outside. We are stunned by perspective. It reminds us of this amazing video from 1977 that illustrates how the small, local spaces we inhabit live inside the global and the universal. (We included the short video below, courtesy of Ray Eames and the Eames Office).

The earth is healing this Earth Day. In our small corner of the planet, we renew our vision to a world with less trash and to a community with stronger, tighter bonds. 

From this era of forced hiatus, may we better preserve our beloved communities and in so doing, create the collective strength we need to preserve the earth for a few more millenia.

All Together Now!