Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment
California Air
Resources Board
Community Air Grants
Spotlight on:
Rose Foundation for
Communities and the Environment
Article written by: Miranda Townsend
Article written by: Miranda Townsend
Their main
office is located a half mile from the busy Port of Oakland; two blocks from Interstate
80; and, two blocks from some of the region’s primary freight and passenger
rail lines. Thus, the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment (Rose Foundation) is
no stranger to air pollution, or the other environmental issues in their
community. I (Miranda Townsend: CARB Intern in the EJ
Unit) was fortunate enough to get to travel to the Rose Foundation’s office in Oakland,
California, and to interview key members of the team. Jill Ratner, Carlos Zambrano, and Katherine
Funes welcomed me with warm hospitality, and delicious, locally produced baked
goods. After the introductions and deciding
which pastries to try, we did the interview. Here is what I learned.
Interviewee Background
Originally
from Chicago, Jill Ratner is the Co-Founder and Board President of the Rose
Foundation, as well as Co-Director of the “New Voices are Rising” Program (New
Voices). Jill explained that as a result
of her mother’s life experiences (Her mother immigrated as a young child to the
United States from Poland), she was “raised with a very different view of the
Government and America” then her younger counterparts. Jill was taught from a young age that America
is a “Safe Haven.” She remembers her
mother’s influential sentiment, “America is our country… [Our representatives] work
for us.” Eventually Jill learned that,
due to different life experiences, not all US citizens held this same
sentiment. She dedicated her work to
changing these people’s minds and promoting civic action and community activism
- especially in disempowered communities. She became involved with environmental issues
through the Rose Foundation and started working with the director of the law
and government academy at Oakland’s McClymonds High School. Jill credits this director with showing her
the local public health issues afflicting Oakland and how they are tied to the environmental
issues the community also faced. Jill
and others at the Rose Foundation raised these local issues to the state
government level and made impressive impacts.
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| Jill Ratner and Carlos Zambrano on the left |
Carlos
Zambrano is the other Co-Director of New Voices, and has been working at the Rose
Foundation for four years now. Originally
from Santa Cruz, CA, he grew up around environmentalism. He majored in Geography and minored in Ethnic
Studies at UC Berkeley. Carlos enjoyed his
interdisciplinary studies there and found examining the intersections of his
two fields (e.g. migration patterns caused by environmental issues) to
be most interesting. After school,
Carlos interned with different environmental organizations in Oakland, and
eventually found himself volunteering with the Rose Foundation. When a full-time position opened up, his
stellar work with students in the community as a volunteer did not go unrecognized
and he was hired in a full-time position.
 |
| Katherine Funes with Rising Voices Student |
Katherine
Funes hails from Los Angeles. She shared
her very personal understanding of the detrimental health effects of living and
working in polluted environments. “My dad
worked as a truck driver at the port in Long Beach for a long time and we’d go
visit him…you could just tell that air was bad.” Katherine explained, “and my dad had bad
asthma.” Now, working near an active
industrial port and the surrounding communities herself, Katherine brings a
relatable perception to the work she does. Katherine double-majored in Political, Legal, and Economic Analysis and Ethnic
Studies at Mills College in Oakland. She
has family in El Salvador and Peru, including loved-ones who have been displaced
due to climate change, environmental issues, land exploitation, and land degradation.
Her studies allowed her to analyze and
understand why these things happen.
“I wanted
to work in an environment where I was all about the work being done” she
emphasized. And that’s exactly what she
found at the Rose Foundation. She’s the
New Voices Program Coordinator, and is a recent addition to the Rose Foundation
team, having started her position there in January of 2019.
About the Rose Foundation for Communities and
the Environment
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| Beautifying in the Community |
Founded by Jill Ratner and Tim Little, Executive Director, in 1992, the Rose Foundation has been around for
nearly 27 years. “We really focus on
supporting efforts to build community power, and to protect the environment,
human rights, and consumer rights,” Jill emphasized. Through fostering stewardship, building
community, and demanding justice, the Rose Foundation supports grassroots
initiatives that help build a future where nature is protected, people’s rights
are ensured, and environmental justice is advanced. The foundation has no endowment fund;
they instead use a plethora of grant-making programs to fund all of their work.
New Voices are Rising
One great
example of a Rose Foundation community development project is their New Voices which
encompasses their Community Air Grant project. Broadly, this program focuses on building
youth capacity to participate in decision making processes and be the voices
for the future. “Being that [the youth]
are the ones that are going to be forced to live with all the consequences of the
decisions that we make today, their voices need to be heard now more than
ever.”
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| Proud of their Certificates |
New
Voices intends to inform the youth about the environmental injustices happening
in their communities and then help them develop their leadership skills and
recognize their ability to do something about those issues. The team works directly and primarily with
youth of color from Oakland’s low-income communities, many of whom are experiencing
health effects, such as asthma, from their current environmental conditions.
“One
thing that’s really important for any youth program is making sure that the
program is authentically taking students opinions into account and not just
telling the students what to do. Letting
the students steer the program allows youth leadership and creativity to flourish;”
Carlos emphasized. And that’s exactly
what they are doing with New Voices. The
program has built two student leadership tracks: the Summer Youth Leadership Track, and the School Year Youth Leadership Track.
School Year Youth Leadership
Track
The
School Year Youth Leadership Track introduces students to New Voices through an
internship program. This track serves as
an entry point for youth into Environmental Justice and how it applies locally.
Participating youth work throughout the
school year and have a hand in seeking resolutions for any of the many
different issues going on in their community. This year’s interns have been very active with
air quality issues, food justice issues, and housing issues.
Summer Youth Leadership
Track
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| Summer Youth |
The Summer
Youth Leadership Track is a five to six-week intensive Environmental Justice
program, with a two-week focus on air quality. Students participate in the program five days
a week and earn a stipend for their work.
Their
weekly schedule is as follows:
Mondays are for a programming and learning day at the office.
Tuesdays and Thursdays,
the students participate in externships with community or agency partners, such
as the City Council, Urban Releaf, and Communities for a Better Environment,
etc.
Wednesdays are for field trips. “We are all about seeing what we are learning
about. Students are encouraged to ask
informed questions on these trips, taking what they’ve learned on Monday to
participate, and speak up,” Katherine added. The field trips include: a tour of the Port of
Oakland; a visit to Mokelumne River and Dam (the source of drinking water for Oakland);
a toxic tour of Richmond; and an environmental justice poetry slam, just to
name a few.
Fridays, students apply what they have learned throughout
the week in a “day of action.”
The Summer Program ends
with a Community Summit. The New Voices youth pick a topic, from the
many they have learned about through the program, and create a presentation for
the summit. After the summit, they leave
empowered to share information about these projects to friends, family, program
partners, externship leaders, and other community members.
One cool
project the New Voices team shared from this year’s Community Summit was an air
quality experiment conducted by a group students. They placed papers covered in petroleum jelly
at different locations around Oakland to capture particulate matter in the air
for 48 hours. The students then compared
their physical results to existing air quality data on CalEnviroScreen.
Building Youth Leadership
Applications
to participate in New Voices ask students to share issues they are interested
in learning about. This will help to determine what the program will focus on.
Students
who wish to further their leadership role (as the program hopes they do) can go
on to be a part of the Fellowship Program during the school year. Each Fellow commits to completing a personal
project supported by the Rose Foundation; helping to develop the following summer’s
program with New Voices directors; and to work with student interns.
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| The Youth Presenting at West Oakland AB 617 Meeting |
Students
who have participated in the Summer Program can also advance to serving as a
Peer on Duty (POD) Leader the following summer.
POD Leaders guide groups of students through the Summer Program with New
Voices directors; make sure students are engaged and learning the program
materials; do workshops; and help deliver lessons during the summer."
Carlos
emphasized, “Our ultimate hope for the program is to push students to care
about these environmental justice issues; especially youth of color. Many youth of color feel left out of the environmental/
environmental justice movement. It often
seems like a white, middle-class issue to care about. These students have to worry about other
pressing issues first like, “are we going to stay in our homes? Are we going to
eat today? Can we pay our utility bills?” We want to bring these youth into the
Environmental/Environmental Justice movement and get them into careers in the
environmental sector. A lot of our
students have expressed that after participating in New Voices, they’ve
discovered that they want to make a career out of fighting climate change and
environmental injustices.”
The Rose Foundation’s Role in the Community
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| Working a Garden |
When asked about how community members
get involved and engaged in the Rose Foundation’s work, Carlos said, “Community
work is constant. It is not something
you can ever be completely done with. We
think about community engagement in the context of what is the most lasting and
impactful way we can engage communities? For New Voices, we prioritize creating a
network within the community and keeping constant contact within that network. Direct communication and genuine concern is
key.”
Katherine added, “We also hold space in
the program for student’s lives and concerns outside of New Voices; paying
students for their work and involvement is a huge part of this! We show that their labor is valued and
important. We also recognize other stuff
that’s going in the students’ lives at school, at home, or personally (e.g.
mental and physical health).”
Get Involved
Keep up with
New Voices on their social media platforms:
This year’s students in the program are
very excited about bringing other youth to the table. If you live in Oakland, work with youth in
Oakland, or have other connections to youth in Oakland, contact Katherine (kfunes@rosefdn.org).
The Rose Foundation Contact
Info
Website: https://rosefdn.org/
|
Phone: (510)
658-0702
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Address: 201 4th Street, Suite
102
Oakland, CA 94607