Oct. 7, 2025, 9:38 p.m.
The power to make a difference is in your hands
With just a few minutes, using this organizing guide, you can join others and organize locally to protect your neighbors. The guide contains information about the status of protections against shutoffs in every state, and provides all of the information you need to make a difference.
Public Grids
Dear friends,
When I’m driving down the freeway to community college on Tuesday & Thursday mornings, listening to Democracy Now and grieving — I want to believe that in 10 years, we’ll look back on what we were doing in 2025 and think, "That was important. It laid the groundwork for our movement to be in a stronger position."
This is what led me to co-host a fundraiser for Public Grids in my friend Jackson’s backyard in Highland Park, Michigan, on a beautiful evening last month. Thirteen years ago, on a similar evening, Highland Park was dispossessed of its streetlights by our local monster utility, DTE Energy. As the sun set that night, we watched the streets grow dark.
Our party now was full of our friends, family, and community members who all know that DTE cannot be allowed to continue its regime of extortive rates, punitive and racist shutoffs, and fossil fuel expansion. It was a huge success, we laughed as we celebrated coming together, and we raised a lot of money to challenge DTE and investor-owned utilities around the country.
Our fundraiser is part of “Powering Public Power,” an experiment to raise grassroots funds and test narratives to engage a wide network of possible supporters. Before the month is over, our team is hosting two more events, one in San Francisco and another in Boston. At the time I’m writing this, we’ve raised over 90% of our goal ($8,954), all from first time donors!
So, I want to invite you to take part in this groundwork.
Tomorrow, Public Grids is convening 60 activists, campaigners, and leaders from around the country to develop a national strategy for the public power movement in Portland — the administration’s latest target.
This convening will set the stage for a national strategy to address the utility affordability crisis and build real grassroots power. In a moment of rising fascism, we’ve been feeling and hearing from our donors that they’re grateful to join something that addresses the climate crisis, the affordability crisis, and racial justice fearlessly.
We’re up against the utilities, fossil fuel companies, and investors that want to keep the status quo alive at our expense. To beat them, we’re building a foundation of ordinary people to take action, fight back, and power our movement for public power.
We have just $1,000 to go to reach our goal.
Can you join us in supporting Public Grids with a donation today?
In solidarity,
Bridget (and Emily, Jackson, and Ben)
The Powering Public Power Team
Learn how to organize to stop utility shutoffs
Over last weekend, we asked volunteers to crowd source a community guide about how to advocate for the end of utility shutoffs. They answered the call, and we’re sharing it here with all of you!
Here's the background: the nation’s only energy emergency program, which helps millions of Americans pay their most unaffordable energy bill each year, is in grave danger because of the federal government shutdown! With winter ahead, we have to act now to save lives.
As we wrote about in our second issue, any interruption to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) is a serious concern for the ability of tens of millions of people to keep the lights on. In many states, as we go into our winter season, the federal government shutdown means that LIHEAP either will not open its doors at all or will run out of leftover funds from last fiscal year quickly.
With just a few minutes, using this organizing guide, you can join others and organize locally to protect your neighbors. The guide contains information about the status of protections against shutoffs in every state, and provides all of the information you need to make a difference.
Many thanks to Karen Lusson at the National Consumer Law Center, one of the nation’s most trusted organizations standing up for the rights of low-income and other groups left behind in our economy, for sharing the first template for this language.
Calling all Portlanders!
THIS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, Public Grids is teaming up with Rumble on the River, a grassroots force for good in Portland, Oregon, to host a free community forum about public ownership and a vision we can fight for!
Portland’s Future: It’s in Our Hands is an evening of music and ideas for building a Portland that provides and cares for everyone with new public investment in public goods.
We will be joined by the Portland Raging Grannies, DJ L3B, Portland City Councilor Mitch Green, Je Amaechi from Unite Oregon, Tiffany McCoy from Seattle’s House Our Neighbors, and New York Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha, sponsor of the Hudson Valley Power Authority Act!
That's all from us this week. This newsletter is shorter than usual, because we are laser focused on building the resources people need, on the ground, in multiple forms today. We know there are many crises unfolding at once, and there are thousands of people in motion, defending one another and keeping our communities intact. Wherever you are, however you are working in solidarity in your community, thank you.
As always, thank you for signing up for our newsletter. Organizing together is what it’s going to take to win, and every action you take matters. Can you share this right now with ✨five✨ of your friends and colleagues in the climate justice fight? Encourage them to sign up for the next update from Public Grids!
With gratitude and solidarity,
The small but mighty (and growing!) team at Public Grids
