My name is Claire and I joined 350 Bay Area hoping to meet a community of like-minded people interested in fighting climate change and to learn new organizing skills. My time on the Youth-led Mobilizing Team (MT) and as the Project Coordinator of the Martinez air purifier distribution helped me do just that.
Mobilizing Team members, with Claire on far right, tabling for clean air in Rodeo with CHC.
By being on the MT, I felt I got a crash course in many different aspects of organizing, which was what I was looking for. I was able to attend actions that 350 Bay Area participated in alongside other local environmental groups, like the NO2APEC demonstration in San Francisco. Zoe Jonick, Lead Organizer and facilitator of the MT, also put together workshops for volunteers where we could learn new skills such as writing letters to the editor, public speaking and tracking legislation—all of which I hope to use in my future work. The MT was also a great way to meet fellow young people interested in environmental work. We had several fun team-building picnics, and started a monthly volunteer day where we met in person for rewarding volunteer projects, like planting trees with Friends of the Urban Forest or beach/shoreline cleanups. It was a great way to reconnect with people after COVID!
Halfway through my time with the MT, I wanted to expand my organizing skills further by dedicating more of my time to an individual project. When I spoke with Zoe Jonick about this, she was extremely receptive and excited to help me find potential areas of work. Since I was especially interested in mutual aid projects and becoming an ally to frontline communities facing pollution from the fossil fuel industry, I decided to reach out to Healthy Martinez, a local community group in Martinez fighting for local refinery accountability. We were able to combine our new Healthy Martinez partnership with Zoe’s relationship with the Lasko manufacturing company to plan a distribution of 300 free Lasko air purifiers to Martinez residents living near the refinery fenceline.
Zoe and I both put a lot of work into preparing the air purifier distribution. In particular, I helped build our relationship with Healthy Martinez through weekly meetings where we discussed how 350 Bay Area could best support their existing goals, without coming in with an agenda of our own. We discovered ways that a door-to-door air purifier distribution could help Healthy Martinez establish more connections and awareness within their local community, by creating opportunities to meet face-to-face and talk about experiences with the refinery. With that goal in mind, I helped design educational flyers about air pollution in English and Spanish to distribute alongside the air purifiers. I also created an agenda and script for volunteers going door-to-door, which I presented during our setup period during each of our distribution days. I made sure to discuss with volunteers that our overall message was health-centered, and to be respectful when approaching community members about issues with the refinery, acknowledging that many folks in the community or their family members may work at the refinery.
Claire with a trunk full of Lasko air purifiers ready to deliver!
With the help of Healthy Martinez, 350 Bay Area, and Martinez community members, we were able to distribute the 300 purifiers over the course of 2 days. The event was a great success and our door-to-door canvassing allowed us to connect with Martinez residents and have productive conversations about local air quality. I was personally very surprised by how many people were frustrated with the refinery pollution and open to talking about it without prompting. Many folks in the community were concerned about impacts to their personal health or the health of their children. By the end of the distribution, many people from homes we weren’t able to reach during the distribution days contacted us about the air purifiers. This showed that there is a high level of interest for a similar future program that could help the residents and a widespread feeling that the local air pollution is harmful. I feel that this event opened the door for Martinez residents to communicate with and look to Healthy Martinez for information on how to protect their health in the future.
Through this project and my time volunteering with 350 Bay Area, I gained a lot of skills in preparing educational materials, coordinating volunteers, canvassing, public speaking and understanding how to have respectful, human health-centered conversations with people who may not consider climate change a primary concern. As I start graduate school, I plan to continue climate activism for the foreseeable future. I will take the skills with me and they will help me feel more confident in the work to come.
– Claire Beckstoffer, Volunteer Leader and Project Coordinator, Youth-Led Mobilizing Team