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Workshop Descriptions for Friday, June 19, 2026

***6:30pm SESSION***

Connecting the Dots: Living like Everything is Connected, Because it is!
Tish O’Dell
We open our sessions together with reflections on the interconnectedness of everything impacting our lives. The natural, social and political aspects of human society are all interconnected. We must ask ourselves some very important questions about our current system of governance and our cultural beliefs, both as individuals and as a collective community. What is our moral compass to guide us through these complexities? Tish O’Dell, Consulting Director for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), will explore and relay her experiences working with environmental law, the political system and community organizing to the ultimate realization that healthy, whole interpersonal relationships with all Life is needed to attain a thriving and flourishing future.

***7:00pm SESSION***

Building Social Capital
Peter Block
Peter Block of the Common Good Collective uses his lifetime experience of community leadership to bring us closer together to share our interests, concerns and commitments with each other. The process is facilitated by small group discussions where the foundations of intimacy and trust are laid down, thus building our social capital. We will share, listen and learn with each other.

Workshop Descriptions for Saturday, June 20, 2026

***9:30am PANEL DISCUSSION***

Legal Standing for All Life; Community Rights of Nature from across Ohio
Tish O’Dell, Bill Lyons, Sherry Fleming, Susie Biersdorfer
Activists from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) and Ohio Community Rights Network (OHCRN) bring a combined 50+ years of grassroots experience educating, empowering, and motivating Ohioans to build equitable, resilient communities, to secure the right of democratic local self-governance, and to recognize and establish the legal rights of Nature to exist and flourish throughout Ohio. This work ultimately takes the long view for shifting from empirical authority to an equitable, Life-centered culture. These well seasoned activists ensure us, “we only lose when we stop fighting“.

10:45am WORKSHOPS SESSION I

Faith and Nature in Action
Becca Desai, Zoroastrian; Mackenzie Doyle, Catholic; Braden Trauth, Dattatreya – Hindu
Moderator: Deborah Jordan, Quaker
How does our faith influence our involvement in and response to the natural world? This will be a sharing of beliefs and practices as well as actions being taken in our community by the panelists and their faith communities.

Yields from the Plant Kingdom; wellness and reciprocity
Barbara Utendorf (Starflower)
There is an innate healing power across all of Nature that supports the expanding of our awareness and the achievement of our highest potential. Plants especially, not only offer physical components that are vital to our health and well-being, they also offer accelerated opportunities for evolutionary advancements—awakening higher properties in our spiritual consciousness, advancing our mental acuity, harmonizing our emotions, and stimulating physical healing influences. Cultivating the bond between plants and humans can help restore harmony to ourselves and to the cosmos, opening doors to the potential of transcendent and reciprocal healing. In this session, specific examples of multi-level therapeutics will be revealed.

A Greater Good for Greater Cincinnati: Repurposing a Gun Range for Community Benefits
Colleen McSwiggin
Sustainability Central is being planned as a campus where approximately 30 co-located “green” organizations can increase collaborations and impacts. The prospective site for the campus is a soon-to-be-closed police gun range with a history of negative impacts for neighbors who live next door and near the range.

1:00pm Keynote Address
From Backyard Forest to World Biome – Preserving our Great Eastern Forest
Nancy Stranahan and Kim Baker, Arc of Appalachia
The Arc of Appalachia’s primary missions are to preserve the balance, beauty, and biodiversity of the greatest forests remaining in the Appalachian heartland of southern OH, WV, and eastern KY. Although a great need exists for the preservation and awareness of a biome that covers a third of our nation, most people probably know more about deserts and rainforests than their home biome. During this program, Nancy Stranahan, Arc of Appalachia Director, and Kim Baker, Outreach Coordinator will be shining a spotlight on the world significance of America’s Eastern Hardwood Forest. They will also explain why the Arc of Appalachia is so passionate about protecting and restoring forests in the East, successfully saving nearly 15,000 acres of natural areas to date. In essence, the Arc’s journey has been to effectively protect a forest community that is 60,000 species strong and sixty million years old, and invite human beings to renew their membership in it.

2:00pm WORKSHOPS SESSION II

Stirrings; a living narrative
Vicki Mansoor
Based on her life as artist, Vicki will host “Stirrings,” a living narrative that explores the importance of art as a guide for understanding, reconnecting and finding balance with self, community and the lawfulness of Nature in this chaotic overly logical world.

Nature Immersion for Grounding Our Activism
Bill Cahalan
A discussion of Earth’s unraveling biodiversity followed by how we can regularly step out of the “techno-bubble” we Americans tend to be caught in. Drawing on our inborn human capacity to intimately know our non-human relatives and landscapes. Using meditation and other experiential activities to prepare for regular slow walking and loving engagement with local wild nature. The gratitude that results often leads to a desire to give back, through rewilding, regenerative land care, and working to reverse the unraveling of the global web of life.

The Union of Community and Economics
Kristen Barker
Our economy need not be the enemy of healthy, thriving communities. There is an economic model that puts people first. We build people up with right livelihood and worker ownership, and build interconnected communities. Co-op Cincy, formerly Cincinnati Union Cooperative Initiative, has been doing this work since 2011. Hear the many success stories, future plans, and how you can become a part of this foundational, transformational model of living and working.

Osteopathic Medicine: Health Is Nature
Tony Bianco, DO
During this lecture we will explore how Osteopathic Medicine is a support for the expression of Health, and how Health is indeed Nature!

3:30pm WORKSHOPS SESSION III

Community is in our DNA
Jim Schenk
We are communal by nature. The concept of individualism is a false notion. We need community for our own happiness but also for safety. With the coming crises we will need each other even more. This workshop will look at ideas for setting up an intentional community in your neighborhood, which includes not only humans but all species that share the neighborhood with us. We will use examples from Enright Ridge Urban Ecovillage.

Staying Grounded While Earth Wobbles
Mary Vietmeier
Amid global uncertainty, it is an increasing struggle to find meaning and cope with growing stress which in turn undermines overall well-being. Traditional beliefs and routines no longer offer the security they once did. While this presentation cannot offer a single solution, I will share time-tested strategies for physical, mental, and spiritual self-care to help bring greater peace of mind.

Restoring Our Health And Nature Through Food & Ancestral Knowledge
Sophia Dellecave, Weston A. Price Foundation
Join functional nutrition adherent, Sophia Dellecave, for an exploration on healing foods and what it truly means when finding “high quality” in our world today. Finding and growing your own high quality food is not only a choice to support your healing, but helps heal our world, as well. These choices are what bridge the connection with self and nature. We will discuss the differences between conventional food/practices and restorative food/practices. We’ll also traverse through the knowledge of our ancestors and uncover how traditional foods of the past are able to help facilitate deeper healing from the symptoms of today. Through ancestral knowledge of food, lifestyle choices, and practices, we can learn how one can start using food as a tool for full body and nature restoration, while also helping to heal and support the future generations.