'This is something big': Iowa City's '100Grannies' celebrate 10 years of fighting for healthier planet

Sometimes, they read to children. Sometimes, they get arrested.

In a decade of environmental advocacy, the "100 Grannies for a Liveable Future" of Iowa City know one thing for sure: They've caught people's attention.

"Somebody said, it's been 10 years? Already?" said co-founder Ann Christenson, sitting in her living room amid several potted plants and four fellow advocates.

"The first thing that came to my mind is, 'Where did it go?'" chimed in Miriam Kashia.

Both women are among the grannies — which is how they refer to themselves in conversation — who have committed to spending their later years entrenched as environmental protesters and educators.

One day they might be traveling around the United States fighting oil pipeline expansions, and the next, marching in Iowa City to demand awareness that climate change presents a threat to future generations. Including their own grandchildren.

The organization is made up of about 100 women, not limited to those "of a certain age" or who have grandchildren.

Most people join from word-of mouth recruitment. It's fitting for a bunch of women who are eager to connect.

More: Iowa City activists demand action, walk for global climate strike

When emails from across the world started pouring in because of a feature about their organization on NBC news, the grannies formed an ad-hoc committee to respond. To all of them.

Men have asked to join over the years, including several of their husbands. The answer had always been no — although, eventually, they made a special designation for them: "the grumpies."

"I think in the beginning, there was a sense that a lot of older women are intimidated in groups with men, and men tend to talk over them. And if we had our own older women's group, we could accomplish more," Christenson said of the organization's founding.

That was in April 2012. Combing through the Iowa Women's Archives at the University of Iowa Libraries verifies the organization has accomplished much in the time since.

Among the boxes of material are arrest records, protest songs and poems — including lyrics to a song titled "Rockabye Branstad" — petitions detailing the perils of plastic bags, signed letters from Michelle and Barack Obama and hand-written thank you cards from local teachers.

"Dear Becky, Congratulations on standing up for your beliefs!! Even if you did almost end up in jail!!" wrote "Phoebe" in an undated paper card. "My boys are also grateful that you took time to explain what is really going on with the pipeline! Call anytime if you need bail!"

More: Iowa City reached its 2030 carbon emission goals early. What comes next for city's climate plan?

'Pissed off, big time': Grannies flex might during protests, arrests

Kashia distinctly remembers feeling disappointed when Iowa dropped trespassing charges against several members of the 100Grannies in 2017.

"We wanted to see the headline, '100Grannies five' — which is what I called us — 'on trial for protecting the Might Miss,' or something like that,'" said Kashia, a retired psychotherapist who has been arrested four times.

The environmental hazards posed by the Dakota Access Pipeline triggered national protests. Kashia and other grannies had traveled to a site of pipeline expansion underneath the Mississippi River near Sandusky, Iowa, to protest, before the arrest.

Another memorable moment came in 2013, when several grannies helped build a small barn on the route of the Keystone XL Pipeline in Nebraska. As Christenson puts it: "You can't run a pipeline through an existing building."

The DAPL has been funneling crude oil 1,172 miles from North Dakota to Illinois, cutting diagonally through Iowa, since 2017. The Keystone XL Pipeline project is no longer underway after a decade of fierce protests.

These days, the grannies are among several advocacy organizations fighting the creation of new carbon capture pipelines in Iowa. They have been keeping farmers without Internet access appraised of the future of the pipelines that could end up running through their property, and spending a lot of money on postage in the process.

The grannies have also long been embroiled in a fight against single-use plastic bags. In Iowa City, they campaigned for years to get an ordinance passed to ban their use.

Then in 2017, the state passed a law that prevents cities or counties from enacting bans on plastic bags. It's still in effect.

Remembering that day, five grannies, in an interview, had a consensus of how that felt: "pissed off, big time."

Alongside their head-on activism tactics like op-eds, protests and petitions, the organization has a mission to educate the public. Besides bags and pipelines, they have focused on pesticide use, sustainable agricultural practices — like putting an end to concentrated feed lots — and eating more climate-friendly diets.

One way they've done so is by publishing their own series of books with the character of "Granny Green." They also donate environmentally focused books to the Iowa City school district yearly.

Sometimes, that education piece gets as close to home as possible.

For Christenson that's meant holding educational events in her senior living facility and getting its kitchen to prepare more vegetarian meals.

In the mail room, she uses a glass vase to collect batteries — especially those used in hearing aids — for recycling.

'The first supper': 100Grannies started with dinner in 2012

As the story goes, the idea for 100Grannies blossomed out of a meeting on April 19, 2012, at the home of a woman who had been inspired to fight climate change in the presence of her children and grandchildren on Christmas.

The grannies fondly refer to that spring day as the "first supper," when Barbara Schlachter invited 11 people to her home.

Becky Hall is one of the "original grannies," meaning she attended that first supper. The retired school teacher from Iowa City remembers inviting a friend that day, since she didn't know the people she would be meeting.

"When we came out ... I was like, 'Oh my god.' It was an epiphany. It was like, 'This is the beginning, this is what we've been looking for. This is something big.' We knew that, right then," Hall said.

She said Schlachter, who died of ovarian cancer in 2016, "just had a way of getting things done."

"She wanted to have this groundwork set. It was like a constitution ... like she was going to hand it over because she knew she wasn't going to be here," Hall said. "That's what I always felt."

Cleo Krejci covers education for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. You can reach her at ckrejci@press-citizen.com.

This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: '100 Grannies' of Iowa City celebrate 10 years of arrests, protests