Our Bedford chapter’s Net Zero Circle meets roughly once a month to move forward our goals for the year. If you would like to help or join the group, please contact info.ma.bedford@mothersoutfront.org
Our current goal for the town of Bedford to hire a full-time Energy and Sustainability staff person is about to be realized – the position has been posted! Once the new Energy and Sustainability Manager is on board, we will reach out to support their work of reducing Bedford’s greenhouse gas emissions to Net Zero!
The seeds for the initiative to hire a Sustainability Director were planted back in 2017 when Bedford Mothers Out Front spearheaded the effort to obtain a Net Zero Plan and obtained pledges from over 200 citizens to vote in favor of the funding article at a 2017 Town Meeting. When the Net Zero Plan was completed in late 2019, its primary recommendation was to hire a Sustainability Director. Bedford Mothers Out Front members got busy to make this happen by building community awareness and support, winning the approval of the Select Board and Finance Committee, then bolstering public support for funding of the position in the 2023 fiscal budget. To do so we researched, prepared slides, scheduled work group meetings, attended and added to the discussions, emailed town decision makers, reached out to department heads and committee chairs, wrote articles and letters to the editor for the Bedford Citizen, circulated and signed petitions, attended many Select Board and Finance Committee meetings, turned out the vote at Town Meeting, rallied allies to speak in favor of the position at Town Meeting – and were rewarded with passage of the budget warrant article that includes the new position at the March 2022 Town Meeting.
Our shared work and collective voices are effective! Hope you can join in on our work to give all children a livable climate.