Long before policies reach the floor of City Hall, change is already taking root in the streets of Iowa City through community-driven, or grassroots, organizations. For many of these groups, Earth Day is a momentous day for amplifying their message.
Established in 1970 following a major oil spill in the Pacific Ocean the year prior, Earth Day has since become a global event dedicated to promoting sustainability and environmental protection. While contributing to the passage of landmark environmental policies — including the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Air Act — Earth Day also highlights the work of individuals committed to saving the planet.
Whether hosting town halls at the Coralville Public Library or setting up booths at events such as the Earth Expo, Iowa City’s grassroots organizations protect the environment through community outreach, education and advocacy.
100Grannies:
100Grannies is an Iowa City-based grassroots organization that promotes environmental sustainability through festivals, fairs and exhibits. Founded in 2012 by the Rev. Barbara Schlachter, the group is committed to making a greener world for future generations. Joan Cook, leader of the 100Grannies education team, explains the organization is working to reduce single-use plastics in stores and restaurants by encouraging alternatives such as paper takeout containers and canvas bags.
“We’re working to get grocery stores and restaurants to not use single-use plastic, which is in bags [and] straws. They are made from fossil fuels,” Cook said. “People drink out of plastic cups and throw them away. It goes into the landfill. It goes into the oceans.”
100Grannies also hosts events to inform the public about current environmental issues, such as at the Iowa City Public Library. The group has spoken about water quality and will be co-sponsoring the League of Women Voters Panel at the Iowa City Public Library.
“We just [spoke] at the Iowa City Public Library on the quality of water. We talked about how terrible the water contamination is by the manure that’s put onto the land in the winter; it washes into the rivers and creates nitrates,” Cook said.
In addition to public education, Cook emphasizes the importance of political advocacy and lobbying. 100Grannies plans to use Earth Day events to engage with Iowa residents and lawmakers on climate and water issues.
“We will be doing a lot of tabling. [100Grannies] met with the legislature in February; I talked about climate and water pollution, helping them understand that we need to put regulations on the water pollution that’s found on farms,” Cook said.
Concerns over water pollution have intensified after the Iowa lawmakers diverted funding from the Iowa Water Quality Information System in 2023. The system, which provides data on waterways every 15 minutes, is expected to lose funding by this summer. In response, organizations such as the Iowa Cancer Registry, Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement and Iowa Environmental Council have raised concerns about reduced water monitoring. Sen. Art Staed and Rep. Ken Croken have also introduced a suite of clean water legislation to restore funding for statewide water quality.
Amid legislative uncertainty, Cook emphasizes the broader mission of grassroots organizations such as 100Grannies: creating a healthier environment for future generations.
“We want to leave something for our children and our grandchildren before it’s too late,” Cook said. “[Protecting the environment] is for [one’s] own health and for the health of their kids when they grow up — it’s important to pay attention to it.”
Sierra Club Iowa Chapter:
In 1892, conservationist and author John Muir founded the Sierra Club. Initially focused on protecting California’s mountain regions, the organization has expanded beyond California due to growing environmental interest in subsequent years, becoming the largest grassroots environmental organization in the nation. Today, the Sierra Club coordinates political activism, state-level policy and public education to impact the communities in each of its 64 chapters.
The Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club hosts events, issues environmental legislative alerts and organizes educational movies about coal plants in the Midwest. Jim Trepka, chair of the Iowa City chapter, finds that the chapter’s advocacy efforts have seen both setbacks and successes.
“One of the things we worked on last year was [keeping] the Macbride [Nature] Recreation Area open, and unfortunately, they’re not going to renew their lease,” Trepka said. “We’ve had some success; we’ve influenced some county supervisors, so Johnson County itself has a good alternative energy strategy now.”
The group is determined to improve the community and celebrate small victories, including helping pass the 2008 conservation bond — a debt instrument issued to a finance project with positive environmental outcomes — to preserve natural areas, protect water quality and improve public access to parks and trails. In 2015, with the Sierra Club’s lobby efforts, Johnson County became the first in Iowa to enter into a power purchase agreement, allowing solar panels to power government buildings.
The Sierra Club is taking action by educating the public and urging politicians to take action. Through a series of public forums, the organization has provided citizens with a platform to voice their concerns to candidates running for public office.
“Getting people involved in elections is really important. We’re legally nonpartisan, but we hold candidate forums. We’ve done this for school board officials [and] county supervisors,” Trepka said. “We have these forms on environmental issues; we ask questions and we try to get that recorded and put on the library channel, so that when people go to vote, that’s one of the issues they’re thinking about.”
Trepka cites influencing environmental legislation as a necessity when discussing how to combat climate change on a global scale.
“A lot of things need to be legislative,” Trepka said. “For the environment, there [are] things individuals can do, but if you don’t have the majority of people doing them, it’s hard to make a really big impact.”
West High Composting and Biology Club:
Environmental initiatives in Iowa City are not limited to adults; West High students, such as Endrit Ramku ’27, are actively spearheading environmental change. As the president of West’s Biology Club, Ramku leads a joint project with the Composting Club to manage waste reduction efforts.
“We have a big team of composters working to set out the bins and take out the bags. Organizing [it] this year has been one of the main focuses of our Biology Club; it’s been really important to make sure that we give back to our community and environment,” Ramku said.
To create a larger community impact, the club has been trying to expand its composting initiatives across the school district.
“Our composting initiative has made a significant impact; we have taken out 30 bins [of compost]. We set up bins every day, and they’re opened for composting,” Ramku said. “We’ve been coordinating with the district to see if we can get this on [a] wider scale.”
The Biology Club is not only involved in composting, but also in other events, such as the Monarch Project, which aims to support declining monarch butterfly populations.
“The Monarch Project was an effort to increase monarch [butterfly] populations, because during their migration, monarchs stopped in Iowa. In August, the Iowa Monarch Conservation Consortium released a notice to Iowa homeowners to report [monarch sighting] sites. We wanted to help [with] their initiatives, so we started this project at the beginning of the year,” Ramku said. “Since then, we’ve started multiple initiatives, such as distributing milkweed seeds to improve monarch populations in Iowa.”
Ramku encourages students to help protect the environment and take action in the fight against climate change.
“There’s only one planet Earth — one planet that can sustain all eight billion of us,” Ramku said. “It’s really important to take care of it and stop this spiral towards global warming.”
Bur Oak Land Trust:
From organizing hikes to leading environmental events, Bur Oak Land Trust is an eastern Iowa nonprofit organization focused on biodiversity and human connection with nature since 1978. Nancy Seiberling started the organization to help community members protect non-federal land, and in the 2000s, Bur Oak Land Trust started having staff members.
Jason Taylor, the executive director of the Bur Oak Land Trust, describes one of the main initiatives of the organization, which is to protect properties across eastern Iowa.
“We have a number of properties that we have protected from development, and we effectively manage those properties against invasive species. It shows people what prairie [and] woodlands should look like,” Taylor said. “In Johnson County, we have a number of [properties] — the Turkey Creek Nature Preserve is one of the big ones.”
Taylor explains the impact the Bur Oak Land Trust has made by using a pre-settlement condition for their properties.
“We talk about utilizing a pre-settlement condition; we want to make our properties look like [what] they were before European settlers came here to give people an opportunity to see what that [would’ve] looked like. A lot of these properties were originally farmed, so part of the process is to convert [them] from farmland back into prairie or woodland,” Taylor said. “On top of that, we have properties that people can visit; it provides a haven for all of the native species that aren’t able to grow in areas that aren’t actively managed.”
Despite 85% of Iowa’s land being prairies during European settlers’ arrival, less than 0.1% of those prairies remain today, making pre-settlement restoration especially crucial to protect many wildlife species and provide space for ground and surface water supplies.
Promoting environmental action through events is another essential part of how the organization honors Earth Day.
“We have volunteer events for individuals [who] are interested in learning more and helping on the properties. We also have a lot of educational events; for instance, [we did] a talk in the Coralville Performing Arts Center,” Taylor said. “We’re [also] going to be part of the Iowa City Earth Expo, and in June, we have a series of hikes at our nature preserve in Muscatine County. We have the native cactus that grows in Iowa on that property, so every year when the cactus is flowering, we have additional tours so people can see that.”
Although it is native to Iowa, the Eastern prickly pear cactus is only found in seven locations statewide, making the species endangered. According to Taylor, restoring spaces suitable for threatened species is critical to fight against extinction.
“There are a lot of species that humans have impacted, often for the worse. To still allow those species to exist in our areas, we need to make a place for them to have [a] good, high-quality habitat through invasive species removal,” Taylor said. “If we have a drop in biodiversity regionally, it’s going to cause problems for the ecosystems as a whole, but also for humans. If we don’t have groups such as ours at the local level, we’re going to have significant biodiversity losses at a global scale, and those start compounding. It’s really critical for people to protect things locally.”
Creating a lasting impact on the environment with dedicated staff members spanning through each generation is Taylor’s aim. The organization has worked to meet that goal by incorporating an AmeriCorps program — a national program involving people to engage in community service — into the staff.
“As the executive director, one of my main goals was to make a more professional organization to advance the capabilities of the staff. One of the ways that we were able to do that was to bring an AmeriCorps program to the Bur Oak Land Trust,” Taylor said. “That goes along with another goal to help take this next generation of land stewards. As our staff retires, we want to make sure that the next generation is there to pick up the pace.”
By adding the AmeriCorps program to the organization, over 60 members have completed more than 55,000 hours of service, improving at least 400 acres of land per year through restoring native habitats and removing invasive plant species.
To make a difference in the environment, Taylor prompts individuals to start taking note of nature around them.
“One of the most important things [to protect the environment] is getting out into nature and experiencing it. It’s one thing to talk about it, [read] about it in a textbook or watch it in a documentary, but we have nature in our backyards. We have nature in our community,” Taylor said. “I think people sometimes think about nature as being the stuff that’s far away — up in Canada or [in] Africa. That is nature, but we have some amazing stuff that is living in Iowa as well. You aren’t going to see it driving at 50 miles an hour. You have to get out into nature to experience it.”
