Support for this program is provided by the Weldon F Osborne Foundation.

The Schillhahn-Huskey Foundation.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.

On today's show will learn about two nonprofits dedicated to advancing sustainability while preserving the vibrancy of our community.

We're stronger together, Chattanooga.

So stay tuned to learn more.

Welcome to Chattanooga.

Stronger together.

I'm Barbara Marter.

Bridgett Massengill, president and CEO of Thrive Regional Partnership, is our guest.

Today, this organization convenes diverse partners across the tri state region to address the complexities of regional growth while preserving the natural character of our community.

Welcome, Bridgett.

So good to have you here.

Many, many, many years ago, Walter Cronkite said Chattanooga is the dirtiest city in America.

How thrive combating this?

Indeed, he did.

And I am so excited by that question, Barbara, because when you look back at the history of that one moment in Chattanooga's historic time, it really catalyzed and launched leaders into action.

We were in a day and age where industry was thriving, but it wasn't clean at the time.

Right?

We had a obviously dirtiest city in America, but it woke up our leaders in a remarkable way to get positioned behind how they could turn that around for our city.

And boy, have they ever so thrived.

We know that we can't rest on our laurels.

You can never say, well, we've done our job.

It's done.

The rest is left to chance.

We're finished.

Yeah, exactly.

And so thrive is kind of that point to chapter.

The next chapter.

We are here to inspire continue inspiring responsible growth across the entire Tri-State region.

We know that what happens up in watch Far Lake may affect the water quality of Gunter's Lake Alabama.

We know that people throughout this entire region are playing recreating.

They're also working.

They're going to school all throughout the tri state region.

And we know that just like you said earlier, we are stronger together.

We are stronger together.

So our organization is the place where we can continue not only visioning towards how we can continue that momentum across Chattanooga and the entire region, but how we not just focus on the vision, but in the action and in the strategy and in the way to always keep our eyes on thoughtful and responsible growth.

When you talk about the tri state area, you're talking about Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.

That's right.

And we don't really think about them, but that's transportation.

That's right.

And Chattanooga is like transportation alley.

That's exactly right.

I've never heard that term before, but some of you had mentioned it earlier.

And I'm like, why are we transportation alike?

Why is that referred to us?

So several years ago, about ten, 11 years ago, there was a study done.

And if you if any of us don't need a study to figure this out, if any of us are driving on the Interstate 75 / 24 getting to our destination, and you look around, you are surrounded by a lot of trucks.

Well, the study the data behind that absolutely showed that 80% of the freight in that in those truck traffic that travels through this region isn't starting or stopping.

It's just traveling through.

And so at that kind of pivotal marking point in our history, we realized we are freight alley.

We are a place where we are continuing to be a crossroads, and we're a crossroads of the movement of freight, which moves our economy but absolutely affects the roads.

in, in what can be a really debilitating way if we're just careful, not careful and leave that to chance.

let's talk about the two tier Resiliency Communities program.

So it's the other kind of angle.

So we know we have the highest we have the highest volume of freight through traffic coming through this region.

But there's another remarkable statistic that also is the awakening for why we do what we do today as well.

So The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund have globally identified that the united in the United States, that where we sit in our greater Chattanooga region, has one of the highest concentrations of biodiversity than anywhere else in the United States.

So that's all the living creatures that surround us.

That is all of the different complexities that we see in our outdoor world and in our outdoor space.

The flora and the fauna and all of that, too.

Yeah, that's.

Right.

the beautiful garden that we live in.

Right?

We thrive in that power of and and so we have a program, our Resilient Communities program, where we help community members find ways to get involved in helping to shape the resiliency of their community for generations to come.

How can they have control?

How can they get their hands on their future?

There's a powerful quote I love, and it says by Rosa Beth Kanter.

And she says changes debilitating when done to you but exhilarating when done by you.

And so when you think about the beauty of the place that we live in, and sometimes our decisions definitely disrupt.

So, you know, terrible flooding in downtown South Pittsburg.

cue terrible flooding in Spring City that we've seen happen time and time again.

There are ways that residents can take their hand on the steering wheel and start to shape that a little better.

So actually, you're giving them a seat at the table and a voice.

Yes.

And and people are listening to the voices because this is their community.

This is where they live, and they thrive in everything.

what are what are the four hours of transportation?

So when we think about how you solve the freight challenge, and let me be very clear, freight moves our economy.

This is a great win for our region, but it's also a challenge that we must look at.

And one of those solutions lies in those four hours.

So when you're thinking about moving freight, it isn't just on the roads.

There's also rail.

So you have roads, rail, river and runway.

And we are a region that has all four options at our fingertips.

And so when we can look at the multiple forms of moving freight, it's one of those ways that we love to diversify the solutions to what some of the most pressing problems are in the region, that we think we can only solve it one way or we can complain and think it's just getting worse.

There's nothing we can do.

We've got to look at the power of again and the power of those four different ways of moving freight through the region, so that we can be efficient and be known as a place that is an efficient freight alley, not a congested bottleneck.

Freight alley.

And two, when you talk about the transportation, we have all of these logistics companies here that are trying to manage all of the freight that's coming through from our area.

But then I think about like Fedex and Amazon, you know, so there's the, the runway because they're flying it in and Fedex come first of next month is going to be one Fedex now.

And they're actually going to be, transporting more equipment and supplies and stuff in through the Chattanooga airport.

but also then, okay, so it lands here.

It's got to be put on the, the trucks.

it will either go to a distribution area here locally, or it's going to go out on the interstate and go to Nashville or Birmingham or Atlanta or Knoxville or wherever it's next destination is.

So you've got that link there.

But one of the things that you had mentioned earlier to me when we were talking in a previous conversation was broadband as a form of transport.

I've never even thought about that.

Yes.

And, you know, it's it is it is such a strong reminder that if we can get our residents connect to broadband, we're actually forming that new transportation network.

So as we work, we're able to do it.

If we have access at our homes, if we have access wherever it may be, in a coffee shop in a downtown that may have really weak, poor Wi-Fi, they're going to hurt as a result, but that might be closer to that person's home than driving in to wherever their their office might be.

And so when your commuters can even stagger their starting times based on where they can do their work from, that's helping to alleviate some of that congestion that we see right now on the interstates.

So broadband connectivity is critical to the movement of our economy moving forward.

We also know many of our schools offer online learning.

So if you don't have that option at your home then you don't have the transportation network to get you access to that opportunity at that institution.

Well, and also remote working from home, you know, either all the time or two days out of the week or three days of the week, productivity is still going on, but you have less traffic on the interstate.

That's right.

And I know that when schools out colleges and secondary schools are out, there's a lot of less traffic on the roads coming in, you know, but it's like year after year after year.

I do see more traffic.

And Chattanooga is such a wonderful place to live and to play.

and more and more people are moving here, from all over California, Texas, even from Florida coming up here.

We're we're just a perfect little location.

And while we want more people to come and love and play in our backyard and everything, like that, we have to figure out how to preserve what we actually have.

Well for example, in in a good time span, about 59,000 people are commuting into Hamilton County every day for work.

That's a lot of draw.

That's just the commuter traffic.

Yeah.

On top of the freight traffic that we talked about.

Wow.

So in any given time, that is what we are also looking at from those challenges.

So we've got to really watch the data.

We're nothing without strong data.

You've got to know what the data says.

So that's what we're we've been doing.

And then the other side of that is to be a resource for those solutions for us to be able to figure out how can we solve those issues and listening to them.

And that's been the history of our organization has been to constantly.

And another state, another interesting note 101,000 daily traffic commute counts.

Daily counts.

So that does include all of the all of the traffic.

Yeah, it's crossing over the I-75 line from the Tennessee and Georgia wow area.

So there's a lot that's traveling through there.

So when we as an organization can look at the data, we build the relationships we want for this region to know we are a trusted resource that is here to help our region continue to thrive.

Then we can help provide them with information, which is what we've been doing and growing on and building on so that they can make well-informed decisions that they have ownership over.

Yeah.

So, if anybody wants to get more information, go to your website.

Absolutely.

So our website, it's an easy thrive regional partnership.org.

We have great opportunities throughout the year to plug in.

we're always having we have public events.

We have we just had a couple this week, inviting people to get into the back of a or the front behind the wheel of a semi-truck so that you can experience what it feels like when you're on the road to help us with safety.

That was an interesting.

I bet.

That is.

And then each year we bring together all of these areas that we work in into one space so that we don't want to silo this work.

It's got to all work together.

And that's really the power of what we do.

conservation and economic prosperity can work together.

So each year we have an annual event that we pull people together, and we build that narrative and help people find ways how to plug in.

Okay.

Bridgett, thank you so much for coming in today and teaching me more about thrive.

Thank you.

And transportation alley.

Thank you for having me.

Up next, we'll have Rick Bowers, executive director of green ¦ spaces.

You don't want to miss it, so stay tuned.

We want to know how you serve your community.

Send us photos or videos of you or your family volunteering, and we may feature it on a future episode.

Email stronger@wtcitv.org or use the hashtag STRONGERWTCI on social media.

Welcome back.

We're joined by Rick Bowers, executive director of green ¦ spaces.

The organization promotes sustainable living, working and building in the Chattanooga area.

It's a pleasure to have you here today, Rick.

And I am so excited to learn more about green spaces.

I have visited your website.

There's a lot of information out there, and you are invested in a lot of programs.

And, you know, the climate action plan.

So.

So tell me, what is green spaces and how did it get started and why did it get started?

So about the year 2007, green ¦ spaces was, born or started from, combination of the Lyndhurst Foundation and Benwood Foundation.

And our footprint is the mirror image of the Lyndhurst Foundation's footprint, which is, greater 16 county Chattanooga area, which a lot of people don't realize even from looking at the website.

It's north Georgia and northeast, north east Alabama and the greater Chattanooga area, including out counties of Hamilton.

Oh, I didn't know that.

And, it was created, to have a sustainable interest in Chattanooga, to encourage people to embrace sustainable principles and understand what they are.

And as the world changes and grows and heats up, that there are there are changes that will not only help the community but help the economy evolve as we're we're seeing as time goes on.

Well, I have noticed when I've been doing some research and everything, Our temperatures are increasing because we have more pavements, we have more apartment complexes, we have more vehicles, we have, you know, when it comes to the transportation, everything we are losing our natural trees and natural flora and fauna and everything like that.

So there's no cooling effect, there's no buffer or anything like that.

So what are some of the programs that green ¦ spaces is doing, to, to combat all of this?

and I think I want to start with the, the green pre and because it starts with the young kids and then we'll go up to the adult part and everything like that.

So tell me about the green pre.

So the the green pre is a bi annual race.

and the program is educational.

Where there are schools all across the area I believe about 40 schools that build an electric vehicle to race twice a year.

Volkswagen's kind enough to give us a big portion of their parking lot.

We build a race track, and, they just love it.

And it's a real race with the flags that are thrown out, and it's, you know, it's, it's quite intense, actually.

And the kids love it.

the program is semester by semester.

There are two races a year they, are judged not only by who wins the race quickest, but how their performance is their, their presentation is, And this past year, at, spring Grace, we created a problem with a model vehicle, and they were judged in their presentation, not only their presentation, but how quickly and successful they each school was at identifying the problem with the vehicle.

so that was a lot of fun.

And, this is a Stem program.

elementary school, middle school and high school can can be part of it.

And, we find funding, for schools that can't afford to buy the kid or participate.

And we offer a stipend to the teachers, because oftentimes this is an afterschool program and not incorporate it in in an actual classroom.

the kids are actually not just putting like a soapbox derby together.

They're actually building an electrical vehicle that's going to run, and they have to learn the mechanics of it and the architecture of it and how everything connects and how everything works.

And then hopefully that's going to lead some interest in any of the students that may want to pursue a career in that or educational opportunities.

And yes, that's right.

And we've had over, this last race, 240 students involved with that at over 40 schools.

Wow.

And some schools have more than one car in more than one race.

so, what is empower Chattanooga?

Empower is a program where we, teach primarily low income communities how to save energy.

and give seminars on small, simple changes you can do to save energy from air sealing your home using the more modern LED light bulbs.

you know, making sure your furnace filters change.

Really simple, low hanging fruit changes that can make remarkable differences.

Wow, are those ongoing classes that you have all year long?

Yes they are.

Okay.

And then those can be found on your website, correct?

Yes, they can.

Get on a director of your website.

That's a really awesome website.

Thank you so much.

so, let's talk about the Build it green careers.

So build it green or big as we call it, is an opportunity to harness untapped talent and young individuals.

to train them to get jobs.

It's a workforce development program where we help them not only develop, important, necessary life skills, but also how to do green type jobs, whether it's insulation, air sealing of houses, and this program is different segments.

So six months to a year, the members join.

We have a location over on Glass Street.

Okay.

It's like a warehouse and a training facility for the members.

It's it's marvelously successful.

It's relatively new.

It's only about five years old.

And, we have a 90% graduation rate and 80% job placement rate after such a short time.

And some of these individuals may not even have a home when they come to us.

and so to place them in a meaningful job is really wonderful.

So let's talk about the climate action plan.

I think that to me, I went on your website and I pulled it up.

It's like 60 something pages.

So like that.

I didn't read all of it, but I kind of skimmed over it.

Can you walk me through that?

the Climate Action Plan has been a long time coming and being devised and was only recently approved by the, Chattanooga City Council.

and it is a promise to reduce the net waste and energy usage not only by the city government itself, but to encourage the community to do so also.

And that's, advisory plan.

green spaces were an integral part in the creation of it and the drafting of it, along with the city of Chattanooga city of Chattanooga has been a great partner with us since the beginning and continue to be and, Green Spaces actually organizes the community committees.

in terms of, public outreach for community as to what is this plan?

How can I participate?

How can we reach the goal that the plan strives for?

green spaces, actually, you know, runs those meetings and organizes all of those committee meetings.

One of the things I found was interesting is the tree planting initiative.

I think that's really cool idea.

So can you talk about that?

Yes.

just recently the city of Chattanooga, received a grant, federal grant to plant trees all across Chattanooga.

and they've chosen us as a partner to work with them, to plant trees in neighborhoods and on private property.

And the city will primarily plant trees in parks and on major thoroughfares.

and it it was, a heat, USDA grant, to combat heat island effect.

and stormwater flooding runoff.

And 43% of the city of Chattanooga's urban forests has been depleted in a very short amount of time because of all of the development.

And Chattanooga was a very industrial city for many years, and a lot of the footprints of old factories and so forth are still there that create what's called a heat island, where there's no trees and it's all concrete or asphalt, and it attracts the heat from the sun and then warms up a lot further than you would ever imagine and vicinity around that.

and so the tree planting program is a five year grant we have with the city of Chattanooga that we hope once, it's up and running, we'll be able to continue to to finish the job that needs to be done, because even in five years, we won't be able to, with this grant, do all that needs to be done.

And so I'm really excited because it's an opportunity that, we haven't had in Chattanooga before.

There was a tree planting grant in 2008, 2009. but this will pick up where it left off.

And how do people in the community get in, get some trees planted on their property?

How do they get involved in it?

They can reach us through our website.

there are certain areas for this particular grant that we are to plant trees in Disinvested neighborhoods and those near these heat islands.

but as we grow the program, then the requirements of where they can be placed, I hope will broaden.

Yes.

That's right.

And one of the great things of this grant is that it has, enabled green spaces to create a forestry plan and an actual tree map of the city, which has never been done before.

So we'll know what trees planted, where, what needs to be, where.

And that's for the whole city, not just where we're working on this one, Grant.

So we'll be primed and ready to finish the job once this is done.

And, you know, data is so important, people don't realize.

But the data that you're collecting on the trees and all these, heat islands and places like that is, is so important for us to start recognizing those now and then, trying to figure out how we implement plans to reduce, you know, the rising temperatures and everything like that and just make it a really great can continue to make it a great community that we live in.

So yes.

All right, Ric, thank you so much for coming in today.

Really appreciate it and tell you and for telling me more about green spaces.

Thank you so much.

Welcome.

And thank you for joining us.

We hope you've learned more about the incredible and inspiring work being done by our nonprofits.

So tell us what you think.

Email us at stronger@wtcitv.org or use the hashtag stronger WTCI on social media.

I'm Barbara Marter, and from all of us here at WTCI.

We'll see you next time.

Support for this program is provided by the Weldon F Osborne Foundation.

The Schillhahn-Huskey Foundation.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.