Ginny McGinn

Center for Whole Communities

My early activism was inspired by the work of journalist Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and by my own religious studies. I was focused on social inequality and skeptical of environmentalism, believing it was disconnected from the suffering of people across the globe. That shifted in 1989 when as a mother I experienced first hand the connection between human health and the environment. Learning about chemicals in breast milk, the impacts of inequitable industrial pollution in neighborhoods was the beginning of three decades of work at the intersection of environment and human health and wellbeing. My training as an artist and experience in communication, strategy and design in the organic food movement led me to Bioneers, and from there to my current work with Center for Whole Communities where we build capacity to tend to the climate and social crises we face.