��ñ��

The Story Behind The Project

The Climate Change Quilt is inspired by the AIDS Quilt Project from the 1980s. (Read more about the AIDS Quilt Project below.) The AIDS Quilt Project raised awareness and honored the lives lost to HIV/AIDS. Likewise, the Climate Quilt Project is aimed at raising awareness of the issues related to climate change. A recent study found that climate change fueled the world’s 10 worst weather disasters of the past two decades and contributed to the deaths of more than 570,000 people. Estimates are that unabated climate change will result in 3.4 million deaths annually by the end of the century.

How to Get Involved

At ��ñ�� Univeristy

• Make a drawing of the panel you envision. All panels should be 18” x 24” and can be either portrait or landscape. Art supplies are available at the Food Coop and the Multicultural Resource Center on campus if you need some. Ideas for content include:
  • Panels commemorating natural disasters in which lives were lost.
  • Consequences of climate change (e.g. heat, drought, severe storms, ocean acidification, sea level rise, food shortages, migration, etc.). For more information check out our Story Map about Climate Change. The Story Map has links to maps, websites, documentaries, videos, and books so you can learn more.
  • Things threatened by climate change (e.g. ecosystems, animals, plants, agriculture, water resources, etc.)
  • Solutions to climate change (e.g. solar panels, stopping deforestation, eating less meat, reducing consumption, etc.)
  • Facts/figures about climate change (yes, a panel of words is OK if you can’t draw, and even if you can!)
• Come to a work session to convert your (or someone else’s) drawing into a quilt square using upcycled fabric. Or, make your own at home. If you come to a work session, all fabric and supplies will be provided, but donations are appreciated.
• Spread the word! Anyone can contribute. Faculty, staff, students, community members, retirees, kids . . . . anyone!

At Other Universities

��ñ�� is starting the Climate Change Quilt. Many of you may remember, or have heard of, the AIDS Quilt from the 1980s. It was an effort to increase awareness of those dying from AIDS and was eventually displayed at the National Mall in Washington, DC. We have a similar goal for the Climate Change Quilt and invite you to participate in this effort. We will be making bed-sized quilts to display in unison on April 26, 2025 during our Earth Day celebration. The quilts are being made by student groups, residential communities, faculty and staff, and even community organizations. In addition to the Quilt, we will be putting together a digital catalog that explains the message on each Quilt.

We hope that your campus will join the effort by constructing your own quilts and displaying them on your campuses during your Earth Day celebrations. We would love to hear about them and include them in our digital catalog. Email us at sustainability@binghamton.edu. We also invite you to bring your quilts to AASHE 2025 in Minneapolis.

For more information, please contact Dr. Pamela Mischen, Chief Sustainability Officer and Professor of Environmental Studies at pmischen@binghamton.edu.
Join us in being more visible and vocal!

 

The AIDS Quilt was conceived in November of 1985 by long-time human rights activist,
author and lecturer Cleve Jones. Since the 1978 assassinations of gay San Francisco
Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone, Jones had helped organize the annual candlelight march honoring these men. While planning the 1985 march, he learned that over 1,000 San Franciscans had been lost to AIDS. He asked each of his fellow marchers to write on placards the names of friends and loved ones who had died of AIDS. At the end of the march, Jones and others stood on ladders taping these placards to the walls of the San Francisco Federal Building. The wall of names looked like a patchwork quilt.

Inspired by this sight, Jones and friends made plans for a larger memorial.  A little over a year later, a small group of strangers gathered in a San Francisco storefront to document the lives they feared history would neglect. Their goal was to create a memorial for those who had died of AIDS, and to thereby help people understand the devastating impact of the disease. This meeting of devoted friends and lovers served as the foundation of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.

Cleve created the first panel for the AIDS Memorial Quilt in memory of his friend Marvin Feldman. In June of 1987, Jones teamed up with Mike Smith, Gert McMullin and several others to formally organize the NAMES Project Foundation.

Public response to the Quilt was immediate. People in the U.S. cities most affected by AIDS — Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco — sent panels to the San Francisco workshop. Generous donors rapidly supplied sewing machines, equipment and other materials, and many volunteered tirelessly.

On October 11, 1987, the Quilt was displayed for the first time on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., during the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. It covered a space larger than a football field and included 1,920 panels. Six teams of eight volunteers ceremonially unfolded the Quilt sections at sunrise as celebrities, politicians, families, lovers and friends read aloud the 1,920 names of the people represented in Quilt.