On Thursday, March 9, Cook County celebrated the 26th Annual Unsung Heroine Awards with a virtual celebration of SHEroes from throughout Cook County.
This year's Unsung Heroine in the 14th District is environmental advocate Liz Kunkle.
Liz was raised in Winnetka and moved back in 2008 with her young family. As a long-time avid recycler, she enthusiastically joined her children's elementary school’s Environmental PTO committee. She quickly became chair of the committee and stayed in that role until her youngest child graduated.
In 2011, she founded Go Green Winnetka, one of numerous community environmental advocacy groups in the Go Green Illinois network. Go Green groups focus on sustainability issues in their own communities, share best practices, and collaborate to address challenges across municipal boundaries. Since then, she was appointed to Winnetka’s Environmental and Forestry Commission and the Plan Commission, where she has been integrally involved in drafting the community’s Sustainability Plan and 2040 Comprehensive Plan.
Most recently, she quit her “day job” as a trademark attorney to focus on environmental issues full-time. She has worked for Collective Resource Compost, a woman-owned food scrap pick-up and compost company, and is a Board member and Policy Committee co-chair of the Illinois Food Scrap & Composting Coalition, a nonprofit advancing diversion and composting of all organics in Illinois.
Everything Liz does is with an eye toward raising environmental awareness, inspiring people to take individual and collective action, and creating more sustainable, just, and climate-resilient communities.
Congratulations to Liz Kunkle on this well-deserved honor!
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