GREENFIELD — Whether it be wildfires or flooding, the effects of climate change can be felt across the country. Now, a new organization is asking what the people of Greenfield can do on the local level to be ready to combat those growing effects.

Resilient Greenfield is committed to taking on the fight against climate change by asking the community to come together to create mutual aid groups to prepare for when disaster strikes. The group is looking for working-age people to volunteer.

“These things are going to start happening more and more. There is no question about it,” said Bram Moreinis, founder of Resilient Greenfield. “We could get ready for it by learning how to take care of each other. That’s pretty much the premise of Resilient Greenfield.”

The organization of about 30 members from across Franklin County is made up of volunteers, professors, journalists, labor organizers and concerned citizens who meet to discuss how to organize locally to fight climate change, usually with jam sessions and potlucks included. Primarily focusing on volunteer work and exchanging services, whether it’s working as a cook or driver for Stone Soup Café or running a tool-lending library, Moreinis hopes to grow the circles of social resilience through mutual aid.

The group will host a Sociocratic Meeting on Sunday, May 19, at 5 p.m. at Four Phantoms Brewing Co., 301 Wells St., to determine what the group needs to do moving forward and establish a decision-making process. Moreinis recommends reading the organization’s website, resilientgreenfield.org, before coming.

The idea for Resilient Greenfield came to Moreinis during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. A silver lining to everyone being forced to stay home was that it actually made the people in his community reliant upon one another and mutual aid become common practice. He said he was inspired by how people in his neighborhood were willing to help one another, whether it was walking a neighbor’s dog or getting groceries for each other.

“We were spending this first intense time of COVID extending outside of our normal scope of where we take care of each other and making that bigger. We tried that and it worked, and it also built a lot of relationships in my block,” said Moreinis, who was surprised by how much the health crisis brought everyone together.

Moreinis has been personally focusing on battling the climate crisis since 2015 and has gone on to volunteer for organizations such as 350Mass and Greening Greenfield, supporting legislation to fight climate change and advance sustainable practices. He started his work as a youth climate ally organizer in 2019 by serving as a Sunrise Movement coach.

Working with so many young people who are ready to battle the climate crisis also inspired Moreinis to start Resilient Greenfield. While he is happy to have started Resilient Greenfield, he’s also more than ready to step back and pass the torch to the next generation.

Now, he only has to motivate them to join the effort.

“The problem with volunteering is that you don’t get any money, and young people, some of them don’t have jobs or the jobs they have aren’t paying very much at all, so they can’t afford to just volunteer,” Moreinis said.

After talking to young people, it became clear that he needed more than just the promise of volunteer work to entice them to participate. They also need to have fun. The solution? Add jam sessions and potlucks.

Then there’s an arguably bigger issue when it comes to recruitment: apathy in the face of an economic system that has left people struggling to get by. Moreinis said it makes it very difficult for anyone to care until climate change is at their door.

“I had somebody say to me, ‘Hey look, there’s income inequality. You deal with income inequality and then I’ll be interested in your climate crisis,’ ” he said. “I understand where they’re coming from.”

He acknowledges it can be challenging to get people to care about fighting the climate crisis; that’s exactly why he started Resilient Greenfield. By expanding the idea of social resilience through mutual aid, people are no longer just living for themselves but also for the people around them. Resilient Greenfield wants people to know someone is there to help when they reach a low point, and especially during a climate disaster.

Moreinis knows it’s an uphill battle against climate change, but the way he sees it, the options are to run, hide or fight to keep the Greenfield community together when the worst happens.

“I’m going to do everything I can about the climate crisis even if the chances are slim,” he said. “What can we do to keep Greenfield, Greenfield?”

To stay up to date on Resilient Greenfield and upcoming events, visit resilientgreenfield.org.