Ginny Aveni

This slightly adapted text comes from Euclid Creek Chronicles.  

We are spotlighting Virginia (Ginny) Aveni for her outstanding contributions to the Euclid Creek Watershed and her environmental contributions at the state and local level.  

Ginny was an instrumental part of a group of concerned citizens who started Friends of Euclid Creek (FOEC), the watershed group organized to protect and raise awareness about Euclid Creek. 

This group came together while trying to protect a sensitive piece of greenspace at the headwaters (where streams begin) of Euclid Creek that was ultimately developed for retail. 

This core group organized a ‘Day in the Creek’ event at Euclid Creek Reservation in 2001 to raise interest in Euclid Creek, which led to the steering committee that worked toward getting FOEC’s non-profit status. Ginny’s leadership skills, background as a legislator and advocate have been an invaluable resource not only to Friends ofEuclid Creek, but to the entire Euclid Creek Watershed Program. FOEC continues to grow every year in members and capacity, holding monthly meetings, watershed hikes and stream cleanups, etc., thanks to Ginny and the founding FOEC members. 

Ginny’s forty year environmental career led to her outstanding leadership skills beginning in the early 1970’s when she served on the Cuyahoga County League of Women Voters Board. Her experience and accomplishments could fill this entire newsletter, but we’ll try and do her career justice in this brief article. She served as the chair of the first County Transportation Committee when RTA was created; she chaired Earth Day in 1970 and 1990; she was one of only two woman legislators in the Democratic Caucus; she was appointed Deputy Director of the Ohio EPA by Governor Celeste, heading up the Divisions of Air Pollution, Solid and Hazardous Waste; she helped create the Ohio EPA Lake Erie office; and she served as an adjunct professor at CSU’s Levin College teaching Environmental Policy and Administration. 

Ginny is most proud of her work at the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission where she helped develop two instrumental environmental programs, including the county Brownfields program aimed at helping redevelop our old industrial cities, and the County Greenprint, a regional greenspace plan aimed at encouraging communities to provide parks, trails and greenspace in close proximity to metropolitan Clevelanders. Ginny continues to serve on and advise multiple boards locally in addition to Friends of Euclid Creek. In her free time she is committed to her family and bird watching. A strong grassroots group like Friends of Euclid Creek is pivotal to a successful watershed program, so we can’t thank Ginny enough for her leadership and conviction for protecting our scarce natural resources. 

To quote Ginny, “I believe passionately that well targeted citizen action can make a huge difference in the quality of public life and have worked like that all my life.”