Yesterday afternoon was incredibly emotional for me. I shared why on social media, and it was such an important moment and message, that I am sharing it here today too.

You probably saw that St. Louis was hit really hard by a tornado on Friday. While I was in New York, I started receiving a lot of messages from people all over the world, asking if I was okay.

My girls then told me about how they had had to go in their schools' tornado shelters during the day, but it had not hit where we live.

I then saw videos and pictures of the tornado devastation and felt sick to my stomach. Seven people died, 5000 buildings were damaged, and yes, the trees, hundreds upon hundreds of HUGE trees, ripped from the ground.

So yesterday, I saw a call for supplies from Action St. Louis, and I cancelled my afternoon work to collect supplies from my neighbors and go over there.

Here is my social media post from yesterday:

It was simultaneously one of the worst things and best things I have ever seen.

Today I dropped off supplies for those in our St. Louis community that were the worst affected by the tornado last week. I felt incredibly emotional, thinking about the lives lost, seeing homes destroyed, huge trees ripped from the ground with my own eyes. It took my breath away to see the devastation.

Of course, as always happens with these natural disasters, the Black and Brown neighborhoods were the hardest hit, and will have the least amount of systemic support to rebuild their lives.

Yet one of the things that is most unique to us as humans is our capacity to handle multiple emotions at the same time, and while I felt grief and pain for my community, I also felt love, pride, and hope, real hope.

I waited in line for 30 minutes to drop off, so many other people wanted to support. I saw people driving away with supplies, not looking sad, but grateful for how people had rallied together from the @ActionSTL call out for help.

As I pulled slowly along the driveway to the Florissant YMCA, I let myself feel everything. I turned off my music, rolled down the windows and took it all in. I didn’t want to, the part of me that wants distraction wanted to find something, anything, to make the lump in my throat, the tears flowing out my eyes go away.

But I knew I had to look right at that devastation, I had to acknowledge that this is what happens when humans continue to warm the earth without thought of the future.

There is that now famous quote, from a twitter account @perthshiremags that says, “Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you're the one filming it."

Well, now it was my turn, St. Louis' turn to film it, and it is heartbreaking.

And yet, as Action St. Louis and volunteers including (of course) my dear friend Ricky (yes, the same Ricky I shared about last week) handled the task beautifully and impressively, I didn’t drive away feeling sad or pity for those people most affected; I drove away with the most clear, strong, powerful image of community I have ever seen.

I drove away knowing what true hope is, and even if the powerful people in the world who cause most of the emissions won’t change their habits or take us off this course, I won’t lose hope, because even if they don’t have our backs, we have our own. Community is everything ❤️. This is what true hope is.

Well, the biggest news, that I haven't even shared yet, is that I went on ABC News Live last Friday to talk sustainability. I am told a 4.5 minute segment is very long in 2025 (oh, how we have become goldfish!). I had a lot of fun and did myself proud.

Want to watch the segment?

I told them "minimal" makeup, apparently that is what minimal looks like on the news ;)

Live in or near Chicago?

We are hosting a plogging event at the Bank of America Chicago 13.1 on Saturday, May 31. We will be taking runners plogging from the West Side Wellness Walk at 8:30 a.m.

On Saturday, the slow fashion designer of my trash skirt ran her first half marathon. I ran by her side the entire way, and she split my skirt into two so we could be twins as we ran for NYRR Team For Climate through the streets of Brooklyn for the RBC Brooklyn Half.

I think her recap of our story and journey together explains it best; you can see it here.​

Natalia and I were interviewed by four different sources at the finish line; here are a few of the articles that wrote up our story:

The Brooklyn Eagle- Running For a Cause: Climate at the RBC Brooklyn Half​

NYRR- Sustainability at the RBC Brooklyn Half​

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Can you take a few minutes to fill out this survey for my bestie (and finish line manager for Bank of America Chicago Marathon AND Operations Director for Running USA), Michael Clemons? He is doing his dissertation research study about running, and needs as many responses as possible

Thank you!

Thanks to our partner, HydraPak

Natalia and I both carried our HydraPak bottles in the half marathon. I opted for my fave bottle, the HydraPak 350ml SkyFlask, and Natalia had the Tempo Pro bottle and was very happy with her choice. She got a video of me refilling once again (it was easy and fast). I refilled twice during the race, and the flip top lid on the SkyFlask made it easy.

As you may have read in the articles above, I genuinely believe that for most of us, carrying our own hydration is not only best environmentally, but fastest too, as you can sip your own product.

As a friend of mine, with code TINAMUIR10 you can get 10% off:

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Be kind to one another, yourself, and this beautiful planet of ours.

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