About Us
Green Friends is a group of Atlanta Friends Meeting (Quakers) members and attenders who are deeply concerned about our natural and urban environments – locally and globally. The climate crisis is our greatest concern. The group meets every First Sunday at the meetinghouse during potluck (11:45-1:00).
Green Friends recruits volunteers from the Atlanta Friends Meeting to lobby Congress on certain climate legislation, using information from Citizens’ Climate Lobby. In addition, the group connects with other Quaker groups such as within Atlanta Friends Meeting as well as the national Quaker Earthcare Witness. The Green Friends have also worked with non-Quaker social change groups such as Sierra Club, NAACP and Georgia Interfaith Power and Light.
Green Friends also seek to raise the profile of climate issues through:
- The distribution of climate change action stickers which are available for free at the meetinghouse.
- The creation and distribution of climate change posters that illustrated the impact of climate change on the state of Georgia and southeast states.
Green Friends has studied and recommended several actions to shrink the meetinghouse’s carbon footprint. A few of the actions that have been taken:
- Motion-detector light switches in the restrooms
- LED lighting
- Electric leaf blower
- Induction range [to be installed with the kitchen renovation]
- Most importantly, Solar panels on the meetinghouse’s roof. This is our “crowning achievement” as it’s saved us about $3,000 per year in energy expenses as well as significantly reducing the meeting house’s fossil fuel usage.
Green Friends educates the Meeting membership about climate matters through:
- Occasional forums/presentations during the hour after worship and coffee
- Regular “quick” post-meeting-for-worship announcements on “What can I do?”
- Film “festivals”
Current Initiatives
Environmental Voter Project (EVP)
DO YOU WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THIS YEAR’S ELECTION?
Suppose we could identify hundreds of thousands of people who rank climate or the environment as their #1 political concern, and are registered to vote, but who seldom or never actually vote… and get them to the polls this year?
The Environmental Voter Project is attempting to do just that… and we can help!
Working in 19 states, EVP aims to create “super voters” out of environmentalists who are “low-propensity voters.” It reaches out by phone calls, postcards, digital ads, and sometimes door-to-door canvassing — whenever an election is coming up — local, state, or national.
A few numbers to show the potential value of this approach:
- In 2022 in Georgia, the margin of victory in the Senate race was 99,389 votes. The number of “Super voters” (targeted by EVP and now consistently voting) was 103,109.
- Pennsylvania had a Biden-over-Trump margin of 80,555 votes in the 2020 presidential election, but now has 227,446 “Super voters”.
EVP has the potential to make a big difference!
EVP has scheduled a large number of phone-banking events (15 minutes of training followed by 50-60 minutes of calling) for a number of summer elections. They need a lot of volunteer phone-bankers — can you join the effort? Please consider signing up with EVP for the get-out-the-environmental-vote campaign!
Upcoming Events
August 4th – meeting over potluck at 11:45 a.m.
September 1st – meeting over potluck
October 6th – meeting over potluck
Recent Events
 | May 19th – Helen Butler forum on voting On May 26, Green Friends co-sponsored with Social Concerns and Quakers for Racial Equality, a hybrid forum with Helen Butler, longtime civil rights activist and Executive Director of the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda. Helen spoke about recent Georgia legislation that suppresses voter rights. View the recording at this link (Passcode: L7!I1&=3). To learn more, volunteer or donate to this worthy cause, visit Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda. |
 | April 22th-28th – Earth Week Celebration On Sunday, April 28th, we had our Green Friends Climate Change Forum, entitled “Power Through Our Plates”. The event was well attended with around 40 people. It was a fun, interactive event, where we hosted a potluck featuring a variety of plant based dishes. We watched a short documentary on the impact of our dietary choices on the planet and the climate, called Eating Our Way To Extinction (36 min.). You can watch the full film (1 hr. 21 min.) at this link. Then, we had interactive small group discussions where everyone responded to 3 prompts: (1) What are some obstacles to adopting a plant-based diet? (2) What are potential benefits of adopting a plant-based diet? (3) What are things that we can do right now to get started? We shared out the responses to the prompts and then ended the event with additional information and resources for people that were interested in starting the transition to a more climate friendly diet. |
Contact Us
Email us at AFMGreenFriends@gmail.com.