Cool Davis needs you! Every year it gets more difficult to ignore the impacts climate change is creating on our lives. More unpredictable weather patterns, including droughts, followed by unexpectedly heavy storms, hotter and more wind driven fires and accompanying wild fire smoke, extreme heat. These aren’t headlines from remote corners of the globe, they are weather reports from our own region. They are now part of our lived experience. While we might not always notice them, these changes affect our access to housing, affordable utility costs, and access to insurance. They also impact our health, safety, and even alter the routines of our daily lives. These aren’t just climate issues. They are deeply personal issues.

Working to improve our personal and community resilience, to adapt to these changes and to reduce what creates them is the work of our lifetime. It matters because it protects the places and people we love and call home, the neighbors and friends we care about and the future we want.

What is Climate Resilience?

It’s about more than just weathering a storm or heatwave. It’s about preparing ourselves and our communities for changing conditions and creating conditions where we can thrive.  That means more energy efficient homes and apartments, having safe climate adapted green spaces to cool us, supporting our local food systems and reducing food waste, and strengthening our response networks. It’s about coming together before disaster strikes so that we are prepared, but also so we are better connected to each other.

Why it Matters

When we work together on resilience, we’re investing in ourselves and in each other. So we have a cool place to go when temperatures are extreme. So we have clean water to drink, and so we can be outdoors without fear of wildfire smoke, or excess air pollution. It’s about care, mutual support, and no one left behind.

Why We Need YOU on the Board

It’s amazing to see how much the staff, volunteers and board members of Cool Davis accomplish. Separately, none of us can make much impact, but together, we do a lot! But it isn’t enough to work on resilience if we aren’t centering everyone in that work. We need new board members that better reflect our region’s diversity and the areas we serve. We need your voice, your skills, and your perspectives from all across our community. Joining the Board isn’t just about attending meetings – it’s about shaping vision, it’s about shaping actions that have positive impacts not just for a few, but for the many. It’s about creating solutions that serve us all, whether young, or just young at heart; whether you’re a renter, a homeowner, or a tiny house dweller; no matter where you and your family are from or whether you’re a farmworker, office worker, retired, self-employed or everything in between.

Your Invitation to Change

This is your opportunity. Extreme weather and change feels overwhelming. Building resilience takes fear and turns it into action. I invite you to bring your ideas, talents, energy, and whole self to build our organization and help turn our community thrive in the face of change. This is work worth doing – let’s do it together.

Lisa Baker

President, Cool Davis Board of Directors

To learn more or to apply, connect with us at board@cooldavis.org or sign up through our volunteer interest form here.