Who

Stewards United is a 501c3 nonprofit (stewardsunited.org) with an educational mission to raise awareness and support for a constitutional right to a healthy environment.  OCERA, the Oregon Coalition for an Environmental Rights Amendment (OCERAunited.org), leads a nonpartisan, grassroots movement with two missions:  Educate, through events such as this tour, and Legislate, through a future ballot initiative.  This tour will be purely educational and not discuss any actual ballot initiative.   Participants of the tour include anyone – residents, property owners, leaders, businesses, community representatives, or advocacy / watchdog groups who have a story or information to share, or people who are just interested in attending to learn about the stories of others.     Participants may also include people or groups wishing to support the tour in any way, from sponsoring food and beverages to event promotion, etc.  OCERA will publicly acknowledge and thank everyone involved in making this event series possible.

What

The Ground Truth Listening Tour is a series of listening sessions and discussion events to hear and take note of stories of environmental harms affecting Oregonians and our communities.   We hope to compile and share our Preliminary Findings Report in July 2026 and a more comprehensive report in November 2026.

Where & When

The current plan is to focus in-person listening events regionally and in free or low-cost venues such as public libraries to maximize convenience and minimize expenses as much as possible:   APRIL - Southern Oregon (Medford, Ashland, Port Orford, Gold Beach, Brookings, etc.) MAY - Central & Eastern Oregon (Bend, The Dalles, Hood River, Pendleton, La Grande) JUNE - Rest of Western Oregon (Valley, Coastal, and Metro areas)   Planned in-person events will be announced in the preceding month on available platforms, to include email updates, website, and social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky).  

How

Types of listening events / ways to tell stories include:

• In writing (through the Share Your Story form or sending information directly to team@stewardsunited.org or team@oceraunited.org);
• One-on-one discussion;
• Smaller group discussion; 
• Larger group discussion; or
• Virtually.

All currently planned events, in-person or virtually, are available on the Calendar of Events, located on both www.stewardsunited.org/listening or www.oceraunited.org/listening.  Participants who wish to provide their stories have the ability to control the scope of how their information is shared or otherwise used.  For example, whatever the group size, they may elect in-person or virtual (through Zoom meetings), and they have the ability to state their scope of permission for Stewards United / OCERA to share their story (either publicly, by general reference, or not at all).

Why

Stewards United and OCERA believe that many environmental harms affecting the people of Oregon are preventable, but all too often compelled by politically-powerful special interests.  We also believe that, despite the good intentions of many political leaders, the larger political system is so compromised that a political solution to achieve needed systemic change anytime soon is unlikely.   While Stewards United and OCERA find that a constitutional right to a healthy environment would be a powerful legal tool to bring about the type of change we need, we want to “authenticate the mission” and ground ourselves in the truth of Oregon’s environmental harms through the stories of its eye witnesses.  This will allow us to go forward in full confidence and with a greater understanding of how an amendment would work in the communities and regions throughout the state. We welcome your questions, ideas, and recommendations – just email team@oceraunited.org or team@stewardsunited.org.