Green City Force

I'm applying for the Elevate Prize because I want to leverage every opportunity available to lift up the voices and help improve the lives of young BIPOC adults from frontline communities. I want to use these resources and my own skills to fight for social justice. If awarded the Elevate Prize, I would use the funding to build out the programs of Green City Force (GCF) to provide more economic opportunity for the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) population of young adults and communities that GCF supports. I would use the funds to strengthen my own professional development as a first year Executive Director and also to fund capacity building of my staff to position our team to be ready to handle organizational growth while maintaining strong outcomes. Since 2009 GCF has been working to create economic opportunity for frontline community Black and brown young adults. We work at the intersection of environmental, economic, and racial injustice. I would use this award to help further our work by providing opportunity for more young adults to participate in our program, and also to build out the strength of our team to build skills and increase resources to support our work.

I am a first generation Jamaican American and native Brooklynite. My career has been focused on working with young people in programs tied primarily to youth development, career guidance, and economic mobility. I spent two and a half years working in the human services and private philanthropy division of NYCHA prior to being recruited to come to GCF in 2014. For the past six years I was part of the GCF executive leadership team as Chief Development Officer. In 2020, I applied for and was appointed to the role of GCF's new Executive Director. I serve on the boards of the Environmental Advocates of New York, The Corps Network, and am a long-time member of The New York Women's Foundation Circle of Sisters for Social Change. In February, 2021, I was named as one of 15 Black Climate Justice Leaders to know. 

I've always been a servant leader focused on lifting up others, particularly young people. GCF has great potential for really disrupting systems of oppression and poverty. As the leader of our next chapter, I'm humbled and also charged up to show the amazing potential and opportunity that comes from creating platforms for young people to drive change.

GCF is a proven model demonstrating that young adults in NYCHA are ready to serve, can create large-scale environmental impact, build interest and skills for in-demand jobs and become stand-outs in their fields. Eco-Hubs Powered by GCF create jobs, grow and distribute healthy food, and design vibrant outdoor community spaces with closed loop systems in partnership with local residents and stakeholders. Eco-Hubs are home base for a range of climate mitigation measures and activities. Graduates are working on rooftop solar installations, going door to door monitoring heat sensors, supporting HVAC installation, conducting waste assessments, analyzing NYCHA’s tree inventory, recycling and composting. 

72% of the 50K 18-24 year old residents reported unemployment in 2017 pre-COVID. NYCHA represents 500,000 people. It is a city within a city larger than Boston or Miami and is the largest landlord in NYC with a significant carbon footprint and decades of disinvestment. We've built and managed six large scale urban farms providing healthy produce to frontline communities, reached 700 young adults in service and workforce training, maintained an average of 82% graduation and 83% placement in jobs or school with an average salary of $16.50, and reached over 40,000 NYCHA residents through energy efficiency education campaigns. 

We design service as a path to greater wellbeing and means to enlist young people to become contributors and leaders in the movement to build a greener, fairer and more just world. Graduates go on to jobs or college, directly or through alumni initiatives that build towards sectoral jobs and apprenticeships, via social enterprise contracts or advanced training developed with employers. Our network of alumni, partners and supporters constitutes a growing ecosystem anchored in our corps.

We are building a generation of young leaders who are gaining exposure and access to opportunities that they did not know existed. We are challenging them to push outside of their comfort zones to solve problems and lead transformation in spaces that have suffered from chronic disinvestment, environmental, economic and racial injustice. Because the members are from the communities they serve, they are seen as role models and credible messengers in asking others within the community to change behaviors in order to create healthier, safer and more vibrant connected communities. We transform what used to be vacant lots, concrete pavement where negative activities occurred into outdoor community centers where children learn about where their food comes from.

The young adults in our community are learning about eco-literacy, anti-racism and liberation, sharing that knowledge with their neighbors. We have an initiative called "each on teach one" where we lift up past global and local justice leaders. At the same time, we have ongoing outreach to the public housing community residents to bring them into the design and planning of our outdoor community service sites. We ask people to bring food scraps for compost in exchange for fresh produce. We go door to door and ask people to reduce their energy use so that the housing authority can use those savings to invest in the preservation of public housing. When officials or prestigious stakeholders want to learn about GCF, our members and graduates are the representatives telling their stories in their own words. We affirm and recruit court involved youth. 

Our model corps in NYC enlists and trains young people from low-income housing communities for a new and more equitable economy. We equip them with tools to change the trajectory of their lives and access good jobs. They develop a passion for sustainability and service through driving large-scale environmental and health initiatives in public housing and other frontline communities.