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INITIATIVES

The Carolina Ocean Alliance believes in the power of partnerships led by local people and guided by local and traditional knowledge to promote equitable, reciprocal, and sustainable community-driven solutions. We are committed to using our network-of-networks model to collaborate with local and regional partners as we work to solve the challenges facing our community and communities like ours around the world. To achieve this, our approach is based on community ecology where each individual and organization has a role to play and collaboration is necessary to promote a resilient and regenerative community.

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The Hope Summit is an annual conference and festival held in Charleston at the end of September to highlight multidisciplinary and intersectional challenges facing our world and celebrate community-driven solutions that create agency and hope for communities worldwide to adapt for a bright, regenerative, equitable future.

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We believe that to heal our world, and ourselves in the process, we must see ourselves as a part of the natural world, not apart from it. We must reframe our understanding of community to embrace its ecological definition of all interconnected life that sustains and regenerates itself within a shared locality.​

At The Hope Summit, we aspire to inspire three kinds of hope. The first kind comes from agency, the feeling that you have the knowledge, tools, or solutions to be the change you seek. The second comes from finding a welcoming and compassionate community that reconnects us with why we work to protect what we love. The third is the experience of being part of something bigger than ourselves and realizing that what we do in service to our community is enough.

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In 2025, The Hope Summit will explore how community-driven solutions can promote Resilience, Regeneration, and the emerging Restoration Economy. The future must include people because we are a part of this world and are responsible for protecting what is in danger, restoring what was lost, remembering what was forgotten, and uplifting the regenerative powers of our world to heal our planet, grow biodiversity, and forge a future in which our children and grandchildren can thrive.

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The Hope Summit 2025 organizers invite leaders and solutions practitioners from all walks of life, disciplines, and stages of their professional journey to join us in Charleston from September 24th to 28th to cultivate ideas, accelerate solutions, and inspire hope for the future of our communities and our planet.

Join us for The Hope Summit Book Club, a community of environmentally-conscious lifelong learners from across the world. With annual book recommendations linked to the current theme of The Hope Summit, readers can discover new ideas, perspectives, and voices ahead of The Hope Summit. Our full list of recommendations is available on BookShop.org and at The Hope Summit Book Fair on September 27th.  

To transform our world through community-driven solutions, we must invest in the emerging leaders and stewards of communities. At The Hope Summit, we are committed to developing and accelerating young emerging leaders through mentorship, workshops, equitable access, community, and scholarships for 100 students and early career professionals to receive fully-sponsored Conference Passes.

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Funds for The Hope Summit Next Generation Scholarships come from generous sponsorships and support by our partners like the Sustainable Ocean Alliance and Austen & Gowder.

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The Creek Collective

The Creek Collective is a mutual aid and collective organizing body facilitated and supported by COA to serve community stewardship groups for creek and marsh systems. This diverse and multidisciplinary coalition of hyper-local stewardship groups works to protect and restore their neighboring salt marshes and creeks, including their surrounding hydrological and ecological corridors including landscaping, native potted plants, oyster reef restoration, and rain gardens.

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The MARSH Project

The Marsh Appreciation and Restoration Society for Happiness Project is a grassroots and community-based effort to preserve and restore our marshes. This hyperlocal stewardship group was founded by Dr. Blake Scott, Blake Suarez, and Joel Caldwell to protect Halsey Creek, one of the few remaining tidal salt marsh creeks on the Charleston peninsula. Their goal is to build a deep connection between their neighbors and the creek at the heart of their neighborhood through history and storytelling, visual art, native plant species restorations, clean-ups, and opportunities to build a culture of caring.

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In April of 2023, The MARSH Project became an official program of the Carolina Ocean Alliance.

Ghost Creeks

Inspired by Baltimore’s “Ghost Rivers” public art installations and self-guided walking tours, “Ghost Creeks” will promote resilience, environmental justice, and smart city planning by reintroducing current and future residents to the city’s buried waterways.

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Sustainable Ocean Alliance Charleston

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Sustainable Ocean Alliance Charleston

Carolina Ocean Alliance hosts the local community hub of the Sustainable Ocean Alliance in Charleston, South Carolina. Through this hub, the COA works to develop the next generation of leaders, cultivate ideas, accelerate solutions, and promote opportunities for emerging young leaders from our region. We also seek to connect our local young professionals with their peers from around the world. Our goal is to develop, equip, and accelerate the next generation of leaders in our region. 

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SOA Charleston sponsors the University-based SOA hub at the College of Charleston. 

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