By A.J. Hudson. How Did I Apply my Skills to Community Organizing Work? The Environmental Fellows Program (EFP) was really special for me. I had a deeply gratifying experience where I effectively got to return home and apply the skills I gained in grad school to the communities closest to my heart. Through my placement Read more

By Donny Hearn III. At the Solidago Foundation in Northampton, Massachusetts, a national funder with a longstanding history of early funding, idea incubating and grassroots grantmaking, I was allowed to research within their climate and environmental justice portfolio. Coming from Michigan and rooted in an academic background of evolutionary anthropology and public health, I was Read more

By Cally Xi. Being an Environmental Health Sciences student tends not to be the most cheerful of disciplines. This is especially true when one specializes in environmental quality and sustainability. I can list off the harmful chemicals the everyday person may encounter in air we breathe, food we eat, personal care products we use, and Read more

By Saachi Das Kuwayama.  While at Appalachian Voices, I learned just how deeply embedded politics are in all types of environmental work.  Meetings on topics from water testing to coal reclamation and pipeline advocacy always included in-depth discussions about the politics of relevant stakeholders and political implications of proposed actions.  For instance, discussions about the Read more

By Cyatharine Alias. Neighbor to Neighbor is a multi-issue, grassroots, environmental justice organization based in 4 chapters within Massachusetts: Lynn, Worcester, Holyoke, and Springfield. Neighbor to Neighbor’s base is rooted in the “new majority” – people of color, immigrants, working class, and women in each of these cities. In my short time there, I actively Read more

By Laura Grier. My summer as an Environmental Fellow came at the culmination of my graduate education in Environmental Justice and Policy at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability. I had spent two years discussing human destruction of our natural environment, the trend that communities of minority and low-income status are disproportionately Read more

By Faizah Barlas. This summer, I was tasked with creating two Toolkit Reports each of which will function as a resource for grassroots organizations to understand the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund’s (Grassroots Fund) Guiding Values and provide action items for them to be able to measure their progress. The reports will focus on two of the Read more