Mayor Betsy Hodges’ announced a new initiative called the Minneapolis Climate Champs Challenge at her second State of the City Address at the American Swedish Institute in south Minneapolis on Thursday. For the remainder of 2015, the Minneapolis Climate Champs Challenge will announce one new challenge each month for residents to reduce their carbon footprint through easy, practical, everyday activities. The challenge will engage residents adopting new habits that help the city meet its environmental goals. This level of committed willingness from city leadership will be useful for helping eventual clean energy partnership programs be successful in accomplishing significant change.  

For April, the first month of the challenge, Mayor Hodges is asking residents to increase their recycling rates and encouraging sign ups for the city's new organics recycling program. 

“Each one of us can do something here to stop the progress of climate change,” Mayor Hodges declared during her speech. “Each one of us has a gift to offer the process. Each one of us has something we can do, that we choose to do, to make sure we have a healthy planet and people...We cannot leave anyone’s genius on the table.”