Building resilient communities is an important pillar of our work at PCEC. Community resilience is the ability of a community to recover from a disaster or persist sustainably in the face of a new, ongoing hardship. Disasters and other threats are becoming increasingly common, especially those caused by climate change, increasing globalization, and urbanization. And as communities themselves continue to grow, both in size and complexity, the risk to those communities increases.

Living in a rural community, we don’t have all the resources of a bigger place, yet the June 2022 Yellowstone flood is a primary example of how we can come together when it matters most.

Through partnership and collaboration, we are better prepared for the future. Together, we can support sound policies, empower local voices, show up for local leaders, engage the public and focus on coalition building.

If you share our passion about ensuring that all our human and other-than-human residents can thrive, please consider donating in the final days of Give a Hoot!

Our programs aim to protect keystone species and increase biodiversity; support and incubate future conservation leaders; bring capacity to natural disaster response planning such as drought management and floods; promote large landscape consolidation, increase carbon sequestration and waste reduction; and help build local community capacity.

Here are some of the ways our program work builds a resilient community:

For three years, we’ve hosted an AmeriCorps NCCC team to provide a collaborative resource. Their impact resulted in more community gardens, more food for school kids, more urban trees, more trails and parks maintained, more compostable material diverted from the landfill, more weed sites monitored and mapped, more public outreach, and events and programs such as Give a Hoot and the Farmer’s Market were better supported.
Coordinating the first youth-led Montana Climate Youth Summit and empowering youth and young leaders across the state to participate.
Hosting an AmeriCorps Resilience Cohort VISTA, and embarking on a Community Resilience planning process in partnership with the City.
Livingston Loves Trees has planted 167 trees and educated homeowners on tree care. Trees that will improve air quality, mitigate the urban heat island effect, increase carbon sequestration and the urban forest biodiversity.
Combating the spread of noxious weeds on public lands, studying the effectiveness of various treatment methods, and protecting landscapes from noxious weeds across Park County.
As an active member of the Upper Yellowstone Watershed Group’s Drought Focus Group, tackling local watershed specific issues as they relate to the larger drought conditions, and providing stakeholder representation for DNRC’s Montana Drought Management Plan update.
Centering Indigenous voices and work by providing resources and supporting Mountain Arts Yellowstone Revealed 150th and the Crazy Mountain Oral History Project.
We reduce single-use plastic by sewing thousands of boomerang bags and distributing them to local grocery stores.
We work to bring additional technical and operational support to help flood stakeholder partners with flood mitigation, economic recovery and response planning within capacity building programs: AGU-Thriving Earth and National Park Service’s Recreation Trails Conservation Assistance program.
We support consolidated recreation and equitable access to active lifestyles, by practicing a culture of stewardship through trail maintenance and promoting the Paradise Pledge.
We participate in collaborative groups that share a common vision of resilience, including the Communities Active in Disaster, the Upper Yellowstone Watershed Group, the Cooperative Weed Management Area, Crazy Mountain Access Project, Park County Housing Coalition, and the Wild Livelihoods Business Coalition.
We are working toward developing a more robust climate strategy in coalition with all our inspiring partners, and we believe in the power of working together during the greatest global crisis of our time.

Do you #GiveAHoot about building more resilient communities?