How a Small Coastal City Is Turning Community Vision into Climate Resilience Action
Tucked along the winding coast of Georgia, the city of Darien is small in size but big in ambition. In October 2025, community leaders, local organizations, and regional partners came together for a climate resilience workshop that is already shaping the city’s future. Climate preparedness, economic revitalization, and infrastructure upgrades are coming together to build a stronger, more connected community.
The Darien workshop was led by the Georgia Conservancy and Resilient Cities Catalyst, in collaboration with Partners for a Sustainable McIntosh and McIntosh County Family Connection, and brought over 40 individuals representing dozens of organizations to the table, from grassroots organizers to public officials. The goal was clear: not just to talk about climate resilience, but to take steps toward real, community-led change.
How Georgia’s Churches Are Becoming Hubs of Hope and Climate Resilience
Across Georgia, a quiet but powerful idea is taking root, one that blends faith, community, and climate resilience in a way that could transform how we prepare for future storms. Rather than starting from scratch, communities are looking to houses of worship that already serve their communities during crises, places that distribute food, offer shelter, or provide a place to gather. The goal is to equip these spaces with infrastructure like solar power and battery storage so they can continue operating during and after disasters.
In an effort to support local houses of worship, Georgia Interfaith Power and Light (GIPL) launched their Resilience Hub Program in early 2026, and this is exactly the kind of locally led approach that Courtney Reich, the Coastal Director at the Georgia Conservancy and the Georgia Climate Ready America Navigator, helps communities pursue. Courtney is a climate resilience Navigator, part of the Climate Ready America Southeast Demonstration Project led by led by Geos Institute and supported by the Walmart Foundation.
Adelaide Bates
Adelaide Bates
Adelaide Bates is the Climate Resilience Manager at the Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities at Furman University. Prior to joining the Shi Institute, Bates served as founder and director of the McClellanville Land and Sea Market, now in its seventh season. She also held roles with the South Carolina Environmental Law Project and the College of Charleston. She previously served on the City of Charleston Climate Action Planning Waste Subcommittee and earned her bachelor’s degree in urban studies from the College of Charleston.
Monét Murphy
Monét Murphy
Monét Murphy from Leesburg, Georgia graduated from Savannah State University with a bachelor’s in marine science and environmental science. As part of her undergrad, she studied benthic foraminifera in the Savannah River Estuary, which are tiny, single-celled organisms that serve as bioindicators of environmental conditions in marine environments. Murphy is currently pursuing her master’s in marine science with a focus on paleoclimatology and environmental anthropology at Savannah State University.
As a fellow with the Georgia Conservancy, Murphy will work with partners and regional stakeholders to advance Climate Ready America and the Southeast Navigator Network. Through Monét, Georgia Conservancy will serve as trusted partners to CDRZ communities and help them take advantage of funding sources, identify capacity building opportunities, and secure the technical support necessary to create tangible resilience benefits. The Navigators will also network and support each other, fostering collaboration between communities and across the four states.
Robert Macnee, Ph.D. is Deputy Director of Resilience Services at Climate Resilience Consulting, where he helps governments, institutions, and communities reduce climate risk in equitable and practical ways. He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Management focused on climate change impacts on health and communities, and brings over a decade of experience spanning economic development, resilience planning, and implementation.
Samantha Medlock is President of Climate Risk Advisors, helping communities and organizations advance equity, sustainability, and resilience. Her career began chasing floods as a local official in Texas Flash Flood Alley—a hands-on experience that still shapes her approach to climate and disaster risk management.
Jim is a multilingual world traveler. Based in Bavaria during the 1970s, Jim spent most of this period in India, Afghanistan and Nepal, where he founded and operated a charitable medical clinic serving Tibetan Refugees. He settled in Oregon in 1983 on a forested ranch in the Umpqua National Forest.
Dr. Micah Hahn is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health in the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies at the University of Alaska-Anchorage. She received her joint PhD in Epidemiology / Environment and Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MPH in Global Environmental Health from Emory University. Subsequently, she was a postdoctoral fellow for the CDC Climate and Health Program, and in this position worked collaboratively with the CDC Division of Vector-borne Diseases and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Her research focuses on understanding the health impacts of climate change and working with communities to develop locally-relevant adaptation and resilience-building strategies. Dr. Hahn is also on the Management Team of the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center.
Michael is a former Founding Principal of Resilient Cities Catalyst, a global non-profit helping cities and their partners tackle their toughest challenges. He is currently the Executive Director of Climate Resilience Academy at the University of Miami.
Dr. Quintus Jett is a consultant, educator, and strategist for public causes. He has a doctorate in Organizations & Management from Stanford University, and a two-decade faculty career which spans schools, departments, and programs of business, engineering, liberal studies, divinity, and public and nonprofit management. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Dr. Jett launched a volunteer project in New Orleans, which enlisted residents, students from over a dozen colleges and universities, and hundreds of others to field map the city’s Gentilly district, Lower Ninth Ward, and New Orleans East. Dr. Jett is an innovator in higher education, bridging the divide between academic research and the other priorities of the modern university, including student access and diversity, community engagement, and providing foundations for life-long learning in today’s rapidly changing world.
Scott is Monfort Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. He has written about 100 publications in the peer-reviewed climate literature, is a former editor of the Journal of Climate, and served for five years as founding Science Chair of the North American Carbon Program.
Linda has many years of experience in disaster preparedness and resilience. She has been an elected official on the Linn County Iowa Board of Supervisors, Chair of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the East Central Iowa Council of Governments, the statewide Mental Health Developmental Disability and the Linn County Board of Health. Langston is a former president of the National Association of Counties (2013-2014).
Ken works with families and organizations as a mediator, organizational consultant, trainer and facilitator. Along with his passion for helping people prepare for and reduce climate change, Ken also volunteers as a mediator through Mediation Works and is passionate about supporting youth through mentoring with Boys to Men of Southern Oregon.
Matthew is a retired high school teacher who was once honored as Oregon High School Social Studies Teacher of the Year. Before his teaching career he was in the restaurant business in Portland. He is also a lawyer who has been a member of the Oregon State Bar Association since 1980.
Andrea is the Resilience Policy Advisor for the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency. She works across state agencies and with local governments to increase the state’s resilience to the impacts of climate change.