By Anna Weber
Starting off the new year, there’s never been a better chance to start making a positive impact in your community and help Missouri Coalition for the Environment (MCE) make our state a better place. Ranging from issues with our food system to local environmental concerns, MCE has been advocating, educating, and organizing to defend our water, air, food, health, and the environment for over fifty years. To help our communities become more informed and involved with what’s happening in our state, MCE has provided numerous resources on how to take part in the mission to protect Missouri’s people and environment.
As environmental issues impacting our people have been at the forefront of MCE’s initiatives, MCE has provided resources to help widespread environmental advocacy and help our communities take on a variety of local issues. For instance, MCE’s Action Guide to Environmental Advocacy is an informational guide designed to help Missourians learn how to stay informed on local issues, access public information, report concerns, and influence change at various levels. They also have an Advocate on Social Media webpage for you to easily share premade social media posts on a variety of advocacy subjects. If you notice an environmental issue, you can also fill out the Report Environmental Concerns form to let MCE know.
Over the years, MCE has been advocating for a sustainable food system where all communities have access to healthy food, and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have been one of the center points of this issue. CAFOs can impact the health of humans, animals, the environment, as well as our economic state, and you can use MCE’s Advocacy Toolkit Against Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations to learn more about CAFO activities and how to address your concerns. If you’d like to participate in the fight against CAFOs, view the Ladder of Advocacy Against CAFOs to decide which level of action you’d like to take or visit the Join MCE’s CAFO Advocacy Network page if you’d like to take a more active role!
Additionally, you can also join the Greater St. Louis Area Gleaning Program and work with a team of volunteers to bring unused produce from local farms to food-insecure families throughout the region.
Each of these resources can be found on MCE’s Take Action webpage: www.moenvironment.org/take-action. Sign up for e-alerts to stay updated on the latest actions you can take at www.moenvironment.org/signup-elerts/.