Roots and Shoots president Lukas Wrede said the club’s Climate Action Plan launch event serves to unite the community in a common vision for the future of the city.

“The point of the launch is to create awareness and community engagement and to get all of St. Louis Park together with the same vision and help everyone understand how they can play a personal role in activating this Climate Action Plan and fulfilling the city’s goals,” Wrede said.

According to junior Roots and Shoots member Anna Kasper, the Climate Action Plan launch will focus on uniting members of the community in favor of environmental change.

“The Climate Action Plan launch is basically going to be a big community event, and we want people from all walks of life to come and talk about how we are going to take action,” Kasper said.

Roots and Shoots adviser Al Wachutka said the launch will hopefully allow the Climate Action Plan to become a more prevalent part of the city’s plans for the future.

Kasper said the club wants government officials, as well as the Climate Action plan sponsor, to speak at the event.

“We are being sponsored by Nature Valley bars and we are going to have people come and talk at the launch, and we are trying to get people from government to come talk about it like Keith Ellison, Peggy Flanagan,” Kasper said.

“(The launch) is about awareness because, obviously, the more people we have become aware, the more traction we’ll be able to take,” Wachutka said.

Wrede, a senior, said the event will feature speakers as well as information and action tables to make climate action more accessible for attendees such as curbside composting information and business solutions for representatives of larger corporations.

“There will be time for speakers and there will be time for tabling, we’ll have tables that address many different scopes of what people are actually looking for within their climate action for themselves,” Wrede said.

According to Wrede, although Roots and Shoots is trying to involve larger companies, the club aims to direct the event toward families and students.

“We want to make this a family event and it’s an event to show people how to save money and take climate action at the same time,” Wrede said. “We’re the generation that’s gonna inherit all this, the Climate Action Plan, in the years to come, so it’s really important that we show up, that we voice our support, represent our age group.”

Wachutka said Roots and Shoots is also focused on other specific causes than just helping the Climate Action Plan gain attention.

“Their newest push is for wind sourcing, where we can hopefully convince people to buy more wind-based energy versus coal-produced,” Wachutka said.

According to Wrede, the event will take place from 2-5 pm on Earth day, April 22 at the St. Louis Park Rec Center.