Welcome to the Rochester Regional Group of the Sierra Club

The purpose of this site is to provide information and enhance both communication and participation of Sierra Club members and concerned citizens in preserving our environment. The Rochester Regional Group falls under the Atlantic Chapter of the Sierra Club, which in turn falls under the Sierra Club Home Page: Explore, Enjoy and Protect the Planet. Be Sure to check our latest public programs: calendar

Join the Rochester Group & Keep Your Membership Current by Linda Isaacson Fedele, Membership Committee Chairperson.  Membership to the Sierra Club should be renewed annually.

The Sierra Club depends on membership dues to help to preserve irreplaceable wildlands, save endangered and threatened wildlife, and protect this fragile environment we call home. A quick and efficient way to renew your membership is by printing out our Brochure, filing it out & sending it to us. -Requires Adobe® Reader®

The Sierra Club's members are more than 700,000 of your friends and neighbors. Inspired by nature, we work together to protect our communities and the planet. The Club is America's oldest, largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization.

Read our latest Newsletter -  

Washington Grove Forest Nature Walk and Coffee/Brunch

Sunday, June 30

• 9:00-10:30am: Nature Walk Meet at the kiosk behind the pines at the top of the reservoir road off Highland Avenue.
• 10:45am - until finished: Coffee/Brunch Corner Bakery Café 3300 Monroe Ave., 14618

Join us and meet some of the staff and volunteers from our Albanybased state-wide Atlantic Chapter! All are invited to enjoy the tranquility and mystery of a beautiful old growth forest at Cobb’s Hill Park in the city of Rochester. Peter Debes, a life-long naturalist (and Vice Chair of our Rochester Group) will identify some of the giant trees and will share the stories of their long lives—some exceeding 250 years—from telltale scars on their trunks. Peter will explain how he organized, with the support of the Atlantic chapter, City of Rochester, and community volunteers, a project to restore and protect the Grove. Now in its fifth year, many invasive plants have been removed and native species planted. When we’re finished in the Grove, we’ll go to the Corner Bakery in Pittsford for some coffee, brunch, and conversation. RSVP appreciated but not required: 585-234-1056.

"Do the Math | The Movie"

Sunday, June 30th at 7:30PM at the First Unitarian Church, 220 S. Winton Rd. Rochester, NY 14610 Very important movie and panel discussion on Climate Change locally.  "Do the Math | The Movie"

The “Do the Math” documentary is a 42-minute film about the rising of the movement in the United States to change the terrifying math of the climate crisis and challenge the fossil fuel industry. 

You’ll come away inspired to act! Sunday, June 30th at 7:30PM at the First Unitarian Church, 220 S. Winton Rd. Rochester, NY 14610 Additional Details: See Bill McKibben at this best.  Panel discussion follows the movie.  Free and open to the public.  More Info at 350.org/math Find out more here...

Sierra Club Outing: Canadice (Finger Lake) Nature Walk

When: Saturday July 27th, 8:30am – 1:30pm

Where: Cobbs Hill Park, parking lot at Culver Rd. & Norris Drive (by Lake Riley) - we’ll meet here at 8:30am to carpool.

What: Walk the beautiful natural areas beside the City’s Canadice reservoir, which has been preserved for over 135 years.

Your Leaders: Sierra Club’s volunteer extraordinaire, Hugh Mitchell and Naturalist Peter Debes Optional: Lunch (pay for your own) on the way home at the beautiful old American Hotel in Lima. Please join us if you can!

Difficulty level: Easy two miles.

Bring: Walking shoes, camera and/or binoculars, mosquito lotion, sun cream, hat. For questions or to register (appreciated but not required): 585-234-1056

The 15^th Annual Sierra Club Environmental Forum, April 25-26 – Great Lakes Need Great Friends: Protecting the Great Lakes Forever was a huge success! Maude Barlow inspired about 280 audience members, as she talked about:

• The many people across the world—including in our “civilized” United States—who do not have access to clean, fresh water.
• How pollution, irrigation practices, and climate change are diminishing the volume of fresh water on the Earth.
• The corporate, government, and trade organizations that have and are actively seeking to privatize water resources.
• How we need to treat the Great Lakes as one big watershed Commons and how we can protect it as a “protected bioregion” using the framework of the Public Trust.

The Forum served to expand the community conversation about the need to protect our fresh water, and it’s not over. This will continue to be a focus over the next year and beyond, as we hold additional educational programs and take action to protect our Great Lakes Basin.

Please join us! There will be a follow-up meeting on May 29th from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM at the Cornell Cooperative Extension in the Highland Room. 249 Highland Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620.

If you are interested, please RSVP at GreatLakesCommitteeSC@gmail.com.

If you missed last year's forum you can now see it here:

If you missed this year's forum you can now see it here:

To learn more:

• Our Forum was a stop on Maude’s Tour “Great Lakes Need Great Friends.”  Here is info about her Tour.
• Here, read her paper Our Great Lakes Commons: A People’s Plan to Protect the Great Lakes Forever. Our work moving forward will be based on these ideas. It’s 38 pages, but is very readable, and you will be VERY well-versed in the topic when you are finished. Definitely worth a read!

·         Please also view the following partner websites:

FLOW (For Love Of Water) http://flowforwater.org/

Food and Water Watch http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/

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• Be Effective: Join our unofficial Rochester Regional e-mail list that only contacts people for our Rochester meetings, programs, and actions-only sent out once a week. 
• Privacy Statement: This is an Unofficial Sierra Club e-mail list for members and nonmembers. We will not use your e-mail for any other purpose than informing you of our meetings, events, programs, or actions we need taken to preserve our environment in the Rochester, New York area.

The purpose of this Group is to foster (within its territorial limits) the purposes of the Sierra Club, as stated in its bylaws: To explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth; to practice and promote the responsible use of the earth's ecosystems and resources; to educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment; and to use all lawful means to carry out these objectives.

Here's what we do:

• We need Volunteers for various positions

• Zero Waste A committee to re-energize and rethink ways to mobilize our community to recycle more waste, and do it more effectively 

• Our Wetlands Committee is helping to build a wetland near Buckland Creek in Brighton.

• We take Action on local environmental issues:

• We initiated a long-term partnership with the City of Rochester to restore and protect the beautiful forest of Washington Grove at Cobb's Hill Park. This is a unique community-wide effort. Please contact Peter Debes at phdebes@frontiernet.net to get involved.

• Each April, near Earth Day, we provide a major environmental Forum -2013 Forum 

• Each year, we conduct a series of outings for our members to discover and protect our environment

• We have several conservation committees that provide monthly public programs throughout the year on specific conservation topics.

• We host a weekly e-mail list to members and non-members of our continual environmental events and actions -sent out every Saturday. (see other column to sign up.)

• Four times a year, we publish our Eco-Logue Newsletter to inform of members of all the issues we are engaged in.

• Each year, we sponsor a Fall Festival

* As you can see, we have lots of projects on our plate and we can always use more help. Join us! Contact Us!

The Blue Green Alliance is a national partnership of labor unions and environmental organizations dedicated to expanding the number and quality of jobs in the green economy. Launched by the Sierra Club and United Steelworkers in 2006, BGA has since grown to include CWA, NRDC, LIUNA and SEIU — uniting more than six million people in pursuit of good jobs, a clean environment and a green economy