Year In Review: Protect PT Finds New Ways to Connect, Collaborate and Inspire

Every person, company, and industry has been impacted one way or another this year.

We’ve all had to rethink and reevaluate what’s important to us - and what matters most - in the midst of a global pandemic.

The Protect PT team. Photo by Mark Dixon.

Protect PT has followed a similar 2020 experience.

As an organization, we’ve had to change how we educate, engage, and empower those in our community. Adapting to a “new normal” has been a challenge, but has further reassured us that those involved in the fight won’t let anything stop them from having their voices heard.

Now that we’re officially in the Zoom era, we figured we would use the virtual world to catch up and connect with friends, colleagues, and local industry experts.

Protect PT started our “virtual lunch hours” back in April initially as a lunch break for staff and members to converse casually and provide socially-distanced support. Our little talks soon morphed into something bigger, becoming online webinars that were both educational and entertaining, covering familiar and topics.

For instance, residents near Mariner East learned the best tips and practices to keep their community safe when George Alexander, author of the blog “DragonPipe Diary”, came on to detail the pipeline’s safety issues.

We learned how to take political and social justice action from our living rooms with help from Karen Feridun of Better Path Coalition and her virtual methods and tips.

We even got crafty when Nina Barbuto (Assemble PGH) delved into an introverted and arty type of activism dubbed “craftivism.”