Big Love Network is Akron’s local environmental health equity organization. We are an evolving network facilitating neighbor-led creative placemaking, sustainability, and health equity efforts throughout Akron as a means for social change. Open this window to read our organization’s timeline, starting in 2013.
Big Love Network (BLN) began in 2013 with Big Love Fest, a community-based placemaking celebration of local creativity, connection, and organizing. The festival was among the first zero-waste events in Akron and was held annually through spring of 2018. These events sparked numerous community projects, collaborations, businesses, and legislative initiatives.
In 2015, BLN formally incorporated as a nonprofit in Ohio, and our leadership team traveled to Portland, OR, to train in placemaking and community organizing with the City Repair Project. Not only did we benefit from this training, but we also contributed to City Repair’s manual on community engagement. Soon after, BLN introduced its flagship program, Akron City Repair, piloted in four Akron neighborhoods. Around this time, we partnered with the City of Akron to create Zero Waste guidelines for public events, and through our collaboration with Porch Rockr, we organized the largest zero-waste event in the city for several years.
Around the same time, BLN began hosting Hands On Sustainability (modeled after Cleveland’s sustainability conference) which ran for five years. A key outcome of this work was the establishment of an Environmental Sustainability Director in the Mayor’s Office in 2023, as well as the start of Akron’s first food forest.
By 2018, BLN pivoted from the festival to a deeper focus on neighborhood-based initiatives and environmental health equity, officially becoming a 501(c)(3). BLN has advanced initiatives in food forestry, tree canopy expansion, sustainability, COVID emergency relief, wellness programming, and creative community support. We transformed our office into a welcoming community space and café, supported music and arts programming, and led efforts to keep pollutants out of Akron’s drinking water.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, BLN distributed over $30,000 in emergency relief funds to community members and began leading the City of Akron Environmental Health Equity Assessment.
The findings of this assessment continue to shape BLN’s priorities today. BLN remains the only organization in Summit County dedicated to Environmental Justice and Environmental Health Equity, advancing sustainability, community wellness, and equity for Akron’s neighborhoods.
Board Members
Our Board meets twice a year to review organizational activity and provide strategic guidance. In addition, individual members volunteer throughout the year to support BLN in a variety of ways, including grant writing, communications development, strategic planning, legislative and media outreach, program support, financial oversight, and representing Big Love Network at community events.
