Each grant is $11,000.
Got Green (Seattle, WA) – Got Green organizes, educates, and advocates to ensure that low income communities and communities of color in Seattle and South King County gain equal access to and reap the benefits of the green movement and green economy: green jobs, healthy food, energy efficient and healthy homes, and quality public transportation. This grant will support two campaigns: The Women in the Green Economy Project develops the leadership of low income women of color in SE Seattle through the “Access to Healthy Foods” campaign. The Construction Jobs Equity Project supports unemployed workers of color to organize for a “targeting local hiring” policy that will open up living wage, green construction jobs – especially along the transit corridor and around light rail stations.
Hilltop Urban Gardens (Tacoma, WA) – HUG’s mission is to develop systems for food sovereignty and create racial and economic justice, in the belief that safe, healthy, and affordable food and personal care products are a right. HUG organizes to build and inspire a local food system infrastructure that works for all of us. HUG organizes an Urban Farm Network of families in the low-income neighborhood of Hilltop, collectively growing and sharing produce. Through its youth programming, HUG also provides age-appropriate social justice and urban agriculture education to neighborhood kids and teens. This grant will provide general operating support, including support for a new project for kids to create and sell garden-based products in their own community.
Native Youth Leadership Alliance (Nooksack, WA/Priest Rapids Dam, WA/White Swan, WA/Pablo, MT/Garryowen, MT) – NYLA is an intergenerational collective of Tribal College students and their allies that spark positive change in Native American communities. NYLA connects education to action by providing culturally relevant leadership support, networking opportunities, and learning experiences that help participants achieve community-building goals. This grant will support the further connection, strategy development, and campaign implementation of NYLA fellows in Washington and Montana who are working to strengthen food sovereignty in the Northwest. This grant will support increased collaboration between NYLA fellows’ organizing work. Members and issue areas include Johnny Buck (Wapanum/Yakama) methods of harvesting traditional foods and integrating them into ceremonial life, Amy Stiffarm (Cree/Blackfeet/Whiteclay) traditional foods and medicines into Indian Health Service care systems, Katie Swan (Yakama) protect traditional foods from the effects of climate change, Paul Cline (Nooksack/Lummi) food sovereignty/traditional foods and medicines in community life through Northwest Indian College, Mariana Harvey (Yakama/Cowlitz) traditional forms of healing and environmental sustainability, Burdette Birdinground (Apsaalooke) increase herds of buffalo and ecosystem restoration.
Nickelsville (Seattle, WA) – Nickelsville is a self-governed, eco-friendly, permanent encampment providing an interim survival mechanism for homeless men, women, and children, while organizing to end homelessness in Seattle. Currently providing shelter for up to 150 people in tents, Nickelsville is in the process of becoming an eco-village that will house up to 1,000 people in small, sturdy structures made of salvaged materials. Increasing use of alternative energy sources, rainwater collection, a permanent garden, and other sustainable practices will enable Nickelsville to provide safer, healthier, and more plentiful structure for people who might otherwise be forced to risk their lives on the streets. This grant will provide general operating support.
OPAL (Organizing People, Activating Leaders) (Portland, OR) – OPAL works to educate, engage and empower working-class communities and people of color to improve quality of life through environmental and social justice organizing. In response to the concerns of its constituency in East Portland and East Multnomah County, OPAL is focusing on access to public transit and the relationship between regional transportation planning and healthy, economically viable communities. This grant will provide general operating support focused on capacity building, to develop the structure and grassroots leadership for the Bus Riders United membership program.
Powder River Basin Resource Council (Sheridan/Pavillion, WY) – Powder River’s mission is to educate and empower citizens to raise a coherent voice in decisions that will impact their environment and lifestyle, and to conserve Wyoming’s unique land, minerals, ater and clean air consistent with the responsible use of these resources to sustain the livelihood of present and future generations and to preserve and enrich our agricultural heritage and rural lifestyle. This grant will support a community organizing campaign to address the air pollution, contaminated water, and resulting health problems caused by oil field contamination in the Pavillion region.
Tenants’ Union of Washington (Seattle, WA) –The Tenants Union is a membership based grassroots organization working to achieve housing justice for all through education, community organizing and advocacy. In Seattle, 27,000 tenants are living in unhealthy and unsafe homes, a crisis at the intersection of housing justice, environmental justice, and environmental health. This grant will support the Healthy Homes Campaign: fighting for a new ordinance requiring for proactive inspections that ensure all units in the City are up to basic health and safety standards.