Get Involved!

Join our network of supporters in advocating for change by participating in various activities.

Attend Virtual Events with guest speakers and our Global Partners to stay informed and connected with our work. Express your thoughts on population-related issues by writing LTEs or Op-Ed pieces, amplifying your voice on critical topics. Become a local advocate by raising awareness in your community—share resources, foster conversations, and be a catalyst for change. Take direct action by contacting your representatives, urging them to prioritize investments in family planning programs. Stand up for reproductive rights by working with our sister organization, Population Connection Action Fund.

Together, we can create a powerful force for positive transformation! Learn more about how to get involved with our efforts below.

Word Population Day

Population Panic? Unpacking Public Perception and Media Messaging

Join us for a World Population Day virtual event with our VP for Communications, Marian Starkey and Communications Manager, Olivia Nater! We will explore the findings from our latest survey, which evaluates Americans’ understanding of and concerns around population issues. The results shed light on public awareness of population trends and the influence of the growing pronatalist rhetoric.

During the event, we will gain insight into how much alarmist headlines about declining birth rates are shaping attitudes. We’ll use this opportunity to discuss what these results mean for public discourse, policymaking, and advocacy. We aim to use this new data to spark dialogue, raise media awareness, and amplify often-overlooked perspectives in the population conversation.

Whether you’re in communications, policymaking, research, or simply curious about the facts behind the headlines, we invite you to be part of this discussion!

Date: Tuesday, July 8th
Time: 2pm ET/11am PT

Register Here!

Book Club Discussion

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024

Edited by Bill McKibben and Jaime Green, this compelling anthology brings together twenty powerful essays that reflect on a year marked by environmental upheaval and awe-inspiring natural phenomena. From wildfires and biodiversity loss to innovative efforts to protect wildlife, these stories offer both urgency and hope as we consider humanity’s evolving relationship with the planet.

Whether you read the entire collection or just a few essays, we’d love for you to join the conversation!

Date: Tuesday, August 26th
Time: 4pm ET/1pm PT

Register Here!

Katherine Schwarz

Member Since 2005

Katherine Schwarz has been an avid environmentalist for most of her life, inheriting an appreciation for the natural world from her mother at a young age. As a child, she loved to spend time hiking in the woods. Her love of animals inspired her to become a vegetarian at age 13. Kathy was 16-years-old on the first Earth Day, when she walked the busy intersections of her hometown and filled up bags of litter.

Bringing her passion for the environment to everything she does, she connected her knowledge in public health and nutrition to the environmental degradation that was getting worse since that first Earth Day, the global population that kept growing at a tremendous rate, and the obvious result: more food insecurity on the planet.

Kathy saw this firsthand when she worked for two years as a nutritionist at a hospital in Zomba, Malawi (sub-Saharan Africa) from 2004 to 2006. There was a special ward in the hospital for malnourished children. In that ward, Kathy observed a local Malawian nurse teaching mothers how spacing their children further apart would ensure enough food for the whole family.

Kathy returned to the U.S. even more committed to helping others make “the population connection.” Fueled by witnessing communities struggle with food insecurity while losing access to essential reproductive health care services, she explains: “I was making that ‘population connection’ every day and seeing the need for family planning with my own eyes and through my work with malnourished children.”

When asked how she has the “population connection” talk with family and friends, Kathy leads by sharing her personal choice not to have children. She personally never felt a desire for children but also lost her fertility during cancer treatments. “Ultimately, I would never even suggest to anyone that they not have children—I believe in choice. I also believe […] that all women should be educated and empowered to decide how many [children] they want to bring into this world—and have access to the [family planning services] to do that.  But if I were 29 today, and still had my fertility, I would not want to bring a child into this world to face all the environmental and political degradation that has happened in my lifetime.”

In addition to tabling for Earth Day on behalf of Population Connection, Kathy is a frequent attendee at virtual events, including our quarterly Page Turners Book Club.

Through her activism, Kathy says she wants to raise awareness of the fact that the growing global population, which has now surpassed 8.2 billion, results in natural resources being consumed faster than they can regenerate. She knows how important it is to discuss these topics to break the taboos around population and consumption issues and to help others understand the value of empowering and educating women. “This is a tough issue, no doubt. Making that ‘population connection’ is recognizing that what we really need are some big personal and even bigger cultural changes. It is a bigger picture and a bigger challenge, but it’s ESSENTIAL!”

Our team extends a HUGE thank you to Kathy for her dedication to our mission and commitment to raising awareness of population issues. If you’re interested in attending our virtual events, we encourage you to contact us at engage@popconnect.org. You’ll be in good company!

Membership Relations Staff