Community Voices - Donna Shurr
Posted by Emily Belle
on July 16, 2014
in Community Voices
Emily Belle
Emily Belle is a second year Environmental Studies major at Oberlin College. Ori
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Donna Shurr has been teaching Family and Consumer Sciences at Oberlin High School since she moved to the town in 1998. She is involved in many volunteering pursuits such as managing the Oberlin Backpack Program, which gives eligible students from Prospect and Eastwood Elementary Schools meal items and snacks to bring home for the weekend.
Q: Have you had any interaction with the Environmental Digital signs in the Public Library, The AJLC, or Prospect Elementary School, and if so, what do you think about it?
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Glenn Gall is an activist, a writer, and a farmer living in Oberlin. He received his Bachelor???s Degree from Huntington University, and has training in permaculture and grazing techniques. He proposes the use of natural systems as a multidimensional approach to the problem of climate change. More of his ideas can be found on the website: 
Peter Comings is a resident of Oberlin who grew up in town and came back a few years ago with his family because of the positive, forward-thinking mindset he sees here. One of his hopes for Oberlin is that people come to see themselves as important parts of the sustainable, progressive actions Oberlin is taking.
Mrs. Janet Haar, the director of the Oberlin Business Partnership, likes to call her business a ???three-legged stool???. The OBP combines a chamber of commerce, main street organization, and visitors??? bureau all into one. Haar followed son Blake New (men???s soccer coach for Oberlin College and owner of Slow Train cafe and the Local) to Oberlin after he implied that her work was needed in Oberlin. He was right. Janet Haar has done a great deal for the community. She is constantly thinking about the future and what would benefit her business in the long-run. Economic and environmental sustainability plays a key role in not only her professional life, but in her personal life as well.
Marleen Watling is a librarian at the Oberlin Public Library. When the weather allows, she bikes all the way to and from her home in North Ridgeville 3 days a week. Biking has become a real positive force in her life, as a way of not only reducing her energy use, but also of feeling healthier and more connected to the environment.
Robert Q. Thompson is a chemistry professor at Oberlin College. He has invested time, money, and effort into installing solar panels in his home and has created an energy-efficient and green household. He has lived in Oberlin and worked at the college for thirty-two years. 
Mr. Charles Horton, Oberlin resident and entrepreneur, is the proprietor of Custom Cleaning Services located in the Industrial Parkway. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Mr. Horton came to Oberlin more than thirty years ago ???with the intent of starting a business.???
Russell Benjamin is a woodworker and a contractor. He is interested in green and energy efficient construction and community development. In addition to living in Oberlin, he also lives in the Pemaquid Peninsula in Maine. He is a strong proponent of education and enjoys travelling.
Alan Mitchell is Oberlin Community Services??? Food Coordinator and an active Oberlin resident, exemplary in his care for others. Alan grew up in Oberlin and after being away for a decade, during which time he attended college and serving in the Navy, he returned to raise his family in an environment he feels can teach his kids essential values.
Barbara Pierce, an Oberlin resident and the first post-war blind student to attend Oberlin College, has worked for the last 40 years for the National Federation of the Blind, advocating for the civil rights of blind people. She is a leader nationwide as well as in the Oberlin community.
