Hello from the tail end of 2025! Big Love Network has had an incredible year and has some exciting events yet to come. Within this newsletter we will discuss Friendsgiving, Growing Communities: Tree Giveaway, Expression Lounge, Stone Soup Potluck, and our Caring Circles Training. If you’d rather an “at a glance,” check out our events page and make sure to follow us on Instagram or Facebook for the latest updates and community news.

First of all, if you’re new to the newsletter or Big Love family: welcome! We are a network focused on fighting environmental racism and creating environmental health equity. This is achieved through intentional projects on neighbor-led creative place making, sustainability, and health equity efforts throughout Akron as a means for social change. We believe that through these efforts, working together, we can create meaningful community connects that bring joy, ease anxiety, and offer security with one another. Now that you’re all caught up… Let’s talk community events!

We have a very busy week ahead including our Friendsgiving Pot Luck with Zach, this Saturday (11/15), starting at 2pm at the Big Love Cafe (1111 Carey Ave Akron, OH 44314). Big Love will be facilitating conversations and providing important information surrounding state and environmental violence. Zach is a co-founder of Big Love Network we are very excited to welcome him on his visit back to Ohio.

And now that we’ve dined and gotten to know one another, we can work on improving Akron right away! Join us on Monday, November 17 at Joy Park Community Center (825 Fuller St Akron, OH 44306) from 5:30-7:30pm for Growing Communities: Trees for Akron. This is an event Big Love has hosted for many years to work on keeping pollinators in our community. We will be distributing free fruit trees, native trees, and vegetable seeds complete with a care guide. Choice of tree is welcome while supplies last. Additionally, we are thrilled to announce that there will be a free dinner and discussion on micro forests within Akron.

If you are interested in volunteering or tabling for this event, please click here to fill out the form! This event is partnered with other incredible Akron organizations (check out the flyer below for a full look!), which you can learn more about on our “Partner Organizations” tab.

But that’s not all! On Thursday, November 20th from 5:30-8 at the Big Love Cafe (1111 Carey Ave Akron, OH 44314) we will be hosting our second Expression Lounge. In case you missed the October Expression Lounge- we had an incredible feature from local poet SugarWaterBaby, a live painter, and an open microphone for anyone to share! Partnered with Angry Cow Poetry, we processed pain, grief, and all of the other messy parts of life together. AND we have a December date planned as well (12/18/25) so get it on your calendar early!

And we have one more event that’s been supporting the community all through November’s SNAP cuts: Stone Soup Potluck. Every Saturday in November we gather in the Big Love Cafe (1111 Carey Ave Akron, OH 44314) and share bulk meals. Food pantries are often giving out bulk supplies and we can all add some variety to our leftovers, so bring bring containers (or have some of ours).

And the most anticipated event (for me, at least) is our Caring Circles training. This training will focus on the skills needed to organize people and organized money to make impact in the community. A caring circle is comprised of 4-8 people tackling a specific issue to develop healthier and happier homes. We want to prioritize connection in calls to action and asset sharing to care for one another in the years ahead. This training does have a registration fee of $15, returned after attending all three courses (dates and times below). Registration information will be shared soon, but feel free to email us!

Wow! So that’s our current plan for wrapping up 2025. For more information on our past events, check out here. Other than that… we’ll see you soon with more events and community programs! As always, we are always looking for volunteers and accepting tax-deductible donations as a 501c3 non-profit organization.

We are all BigLove. Let’s make some change!

-See you soon-