ENERGY DEMOCRACY
People Organizing to Demand Environmental & Economic Rights (PODER)

San Francisco, CA / Ramaytush Ohlone

Antonio Diaz is organizational director of People Organizing to Demand Environmental & Economic Rights (PODER). He builds community power, nurtures leadership, and regenerates culture by organizing Latino immigrant families and youth to put into practice people-powered solutions that are locally based, community led, and environmentally just.

“I recognize the importance of not only organizing for environmental and climate justice where we live, work and play, but also the need to strengthen a broader-based movement to bring about the transformational change to sow the seeds that can grow justice and restore community and the planet.”

BLACK COMMUNITIES
The Smile Trust | The Black Collective | The Black Hive @ Movement for Black Lives

Miami, FL / Tequesta, Miccosukee, Seminole, Mascogo, and Taino

Valencia (Vee) Gunder is founder and co-director of The Smile Trust, co-founder of The Black Collective, and lead organizer for The Black Hive @ Movement for Black Lives. She leads conversations around climate awareness across the country on sea level rise, emergency preparedness, climate gentrification, food safety, and housing and climate gentrification.

“Now is the time the real grassroots get a chance to have access to resources and explore solutions for direct community resilience.”

COMMUNITY-CONTROLLED CAPITAL MECHANISMS
Solidarity Economy St. Louis

St. Louis, MO / Cahokia, Osage, Otto, Pawnee, Kickapoo, Illini, and others

Julia Ho is founder of Solidarity Economy St. Louis and co-founder of STL Mutual Aid. She has developed campaigns for racial justice and municipal court reform and has led and supported dozens of other campaigns, coalitions, and organizations aimed at dismantling unjust systems.

“I am committed to creating just and sustainable systems for people to meet their basic material needs and resist exploitation by divesting from and directly challenging systems of capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy.”

JUST RECOVERY
Oregon Just Transition Alliance
Eugene, OR | Kalapuya land

Joel Iboa is founding executive director of Oregon Just Transition Alliance and chair of the Oregon Governor’s Environmental Justice Task Force. He has led efforts in Oregon that have secured the fastest timeline and best labor standards for 100% clean energy in the country; successfully defended against anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim policies and ballot measures; and defended the nation’s first sanctuary law.

“Our communities have been suffering and under-resourced for far too long. When we move the money, we help our communities thrive.”

SAFE, AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Houston Organizing Movement for Equity (HOME) Coalition

Houston, TX | Karankawa

Chrishelle Palay is executive director of the Houston Organizing Movement for Equity (HOME) Coalition. She draws on her experience in fair housing, disaster recovery, organizing, and advocacy to provide housing and neighborhood development policy analysis and review to local community organizing groups focused on addressing major disinvestment and neglect in their communities.

“The people who are most impacted by the built environment are typically afterthoughts or outright excluded from important conversations about their own communities. Applying my expertise and background in architecture, I am able to serve and fight for the greater good of frontline communities of color.”

ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION
Movement Generation, Healing Clinic Collective

Oakland, CA | Huichin, Chochenyo

Carla Maria Perez is co-founder of the Justice & Ecology Project at Movement Generation and director of the Healing Clinic Collective. She holds experience working on issues of environmental justice with community groups from Yucatán, Mexico to California’s Bay Area; and she is an expert in plant medicine, energy healing, and the traditional Mexican temazcal.

“Conscious people living today are purposefully here to be part of the great transition that the Earth and all its Peoples are experiencing. We are here to take part in healing and regeneration from previous centuries of organized harm. The only way I can feel peace in my heart while so much hardship exists among our communities is to directly contribute to the evolution of our collective experience by relearning how to live in relationship with each other, the Earth, and our ancestors.”

FOOD SOVEREIGNTY
La Semilla Food Center

Las Cruces, NM | ​Unceded lands of Piro, Manso, Tiwa, Chiricahua Apache, and my father’s ancestors, ​Mescalero Apache​

V Quevedo is policy director of La Semilla Food Center. They advocate for anti-racist food policy, food sovereignty, investment in BIPOC farmers and communities, living wages and safe workplaces for all food chain workers, repair historic and ongoing harm in the food system, and advancing a just transition from extractive industries.

“I work to disrupt business as usual in food policy spaces because the food system was the basis for much of the white supremacist violence - violence that continues to this day in the fields, in kitchens, and in statute. This work is my part in co-creating life-affirming, BIPOC-led pathways of resistance out from under the compounding and inter-related crises that put our most precious relatives at risk.”

MEANINGFUL WORK/LABOR
Sustainable Georgia Futures

Atlanta, GA | Mvskoke homelands

Adrienne Rice is founder and executive director of Sustainable Georgia Futures. An accomplished organizer and strategist, she seeks to address two of our nation’s crises: climate change and systemic racism by creating viable pathways for communities of color, especially Black communities, to access jobs and entrepreneurship in the growing green economy.

“There is an intersection between climate justice, the racial wealth gap and systemic racism. It’s not enough to elect a few better representatives or pass a few better laws. We need to build power. When we listen to the people closest to the problem and take action together, then we make change.”

AMAZON WORKER ORGANIZING
United For Respect

Edgewater, CO | Cheyenne Land

Jessica “Strea” Sanchez is a labor organizer with United For Respect, a multiracial movement of working people advancing a vision of an economy where corporations respect workers and recognize their humanity. With a strong and long family and personal history of activism and organizing, she has organized successful efforts to unionize Amazon workers and worked in support of justice and equality for Black and Brown people.

“I know that collectively we can change anything. For me, organizing and activism is as natural as breathing.”

ZERO WASTE
East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice

Long Beach, CA | Tongva Territory

Taylor Thomas is co-executive director of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. She has worked in support of quality and affordable education, people without housing, and environmental justice; and to engage community members in the decision-making processes that impact their health and quality of life.

“Growing up, I didn’t know it was possible to be able to do work that would materially improve my community. I am glad I was provided with the chance to do work that would change the conditions of the community that raised me, and communities similar to mine.”

CLEAN TRANSIT/TRANSPORTATION EQUITY
Community Labor United

Boston, MA | Pawtucket

Collique Williams is an organizer with Community Labor United. He began his change-work as a youth organizer. He built a strong base of youth advocates, and helped advance the Youth Pass campaign, making the connection between accessible transportation for youth and a broader fight for more equitable communities for working-class families.

“There is a need for equity in this world. It is my job to help tear down systems of oppression that exist while I’m here. I most certainly will not be able to change all of it on my own as one person, but I hope to be able to do my part to move the needle.”