New Paradise in Pennsylvania?
A sustainability pioneer pushes for a regional economy amid massive challenges
by Heather Shayne Blakeslee
“Heart of the Home,” by Patty Kennedy-Zafred; 68” X 57”; hand-pulled silkscreened images, vintage feed sacks; image transfer text; machine-pieced and quilted, 2019. Photo credit: Larry Berman
EXCERPT //
“I’m a person of place, and my place is Pennsylvania,” says Judy Wicks, a doyenne of the sustainable-business community.
“My ancestors, who were French Huguenots fleeing religious persecution, purchased land from William Penn and settled in Lancaster County where they founded the town of Paradise in 1713. During my youth, I camped and canoed throughout the state, and now spend my summers in the Pocono Mountains of Monroe County.”
Wicks was born in 1947 in Ingomar, near Pittsburgh, and has lived in Philadelphia since 1970. After a lifetime of building values-centered businesses in the state and nurturing the communities that spring from that deep well, she is attempting nothing less than a re-founding of Pennsylvania as a kind of New Paradise.
Amid rising challenges regionally, nationally, and internationally, it’s a tall order.
But Wicks believes that small business and community building should be the beating heart of a healthy, prosperous state.
Her newest initiative, All Together Now Pennsylvania, aims to ensure that the state is protected from supply chain fiascos, possible food shortages, and other damage—including environmental and social costs—that result from under-valuing regional businesses.
If you met her today, it would be easy to pigeonhole the energetic Wicks as just an overly optimistic, silver-haired hippie—if only she hadn’t already left such a legacy in the worlds of both business and sustainability. …
Wicks says that one need only look around to see why her new All Together Now Pennsylvania initiative is important—especially as the coronavirus is upending life as we know it—and why we must use the power of local business to bring people together.
“As global supply chains become increasingly unreliable due to chaotic weather, [causing] pandemics, cyberwarfare, and social upheaval, our aim is to unite rural and urban communities to build a resilient Pennsylvania,” she wrote to me. …
“Historically, our state has played an important role as the birthplace of democracy. We can do that again,” she says. “Following in the footsteps of our Quaker founding, we aim to build a more democratic, compassionate, and inclusive economy that works for all of us and nature, too.”
Wicks, now in her 70s, is searching for collaborators and leaders to make her group’s collective vision a reality. //
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