The presentation describes an IMLS funded Planning grant focusing on community driven work. Securing sustainable access to government earth science data is integral to the interests of citizens. As the need for data rescue came into the spotlight in the past two years, it also illuminated diverse aspects of the research data management community and the stakeholders we serve. The numerous efforts presented the group involved with new opportunities to learn about how we as information professionals can effectively work together to co-create methods that will allow for the most effective participation. We are learning more about how to plan for flexibility to meet the dynamic needs of a distributed society. Here we will highlight the Data Rescue Toolkit planning project and the design of our Fall 2018 community meeting with its theoretical basis in Participatory Action Research (PAR). We will share meeting outcomes, lessons learned, and present overarching questions as examples of those which are inherent in distributed collaborative work with shared public data. We hope to pass our experiences on and get feedback as we go forward.