A Regenerative Social in The Alley

Educators: join VEN's Tending the Web of Life—a hands-on gathering for interdisciplinary environmental learning and rewilding.
About this Event

Tending the Web — A Social for Educators and Community Builders

When: Wednesday, September 10 | 5:30–7:30 PM (stay as long as you like!)
Where: The Alley, 3320 West Cary Street, Richmond, VA — enter through AlterNatives Boutique
Format: Evening social with short featured talks, informal networking, and hands-on curriculum sharing
Who it's for: K–12 and higher-ed educators, nonprofit staff, environmental educators, researchers, artists, designers, and community organizers

Ecology is the study of relationships. This gathering is a simple invitation to strengthen a few of yours. Join us for an evening built to move environmental education beyond the science classroom and into every discipline we teach.

What you'll gain

• Ready-to-use curriculum and lesson plan ideas you can take straight back to your students
• Internship and program pathways that connect classroom learning to real career readiness
• New partnerships across central Virginia's educators, organizers, researchers, and social enterprises
• A systems-thinking lens that treats ecology, economics, policy, and social work as one interconnected web

Featured voices

• Guadalupe Ramirez (AlterNatives) — Designer of upcycled fashion telling stories of environmental justice, featured in the LA Times and at New York Fashion Week.
• Jeannine Diego (VCU Fashion Professor) — Jeannine shares insights from participatory pedagogical strategies grounded in experiential learning, both in Richmond and abroad. With the aim of redefining fashion as a valuable resource not only for making but also as a tool for community cohesion and transformation, the approach thrives on vital materiality through skill-sharing and storytelling rooted in ancestral, non-Western ways of knowing.
• Dr. Ben Blevins (HSP/DEEP) — Leads the Deep Ecology Education Program, weaving ecology, justice, and career development through internships and thoughtful curriculum design. As a recent community fellow with the University of Richmond's Center for Civic Engagement, Ben will share his project, Unforgetting in the Plantationocene, which connects environmental studies with the climate justice curriculum.

Who should attend

This social is for environmental educators seeking fresh, interdisciplinary lesson ideas, nonprofit and community staff, environmental researchers, artists and social entrepreneurs, and early-career changemakers exploring internships. Come as you are, and bring one lesson, resource, or question to share.

RSVP

Spaces are limited, so please reserve your spot so we can welcome you properly. RSVP today and join us at The Alley on September 10.

Hosted by the Virginia Environmental Literacy Network (VEN), the Deep Ecology Education Program (DEEP) of the Highland Support Project (HSP), and AlterNatives Boutique.