Vanessa Grant Coats was a rural Oregon child who loved the outdoors. She loved exploring the state’s wild areas with her family, including hiking, fishing and camping. It was one of her favorite memories. This inspired her to pursue her dreams of becoming an ocean biologist.
However, as a Black girl, she was often the only one to see her in the same outdoor activities.
I didnt always feel like I belonged, Grant Coats told The Oregonian/OregonLive. I’ve never seen anyone as marine biologist like me. I have never seen them camping or kayaking.
Grant Coats didn’t become a marine biologist. However, she worked as a program coordinator at The Blueprint Foundation in Portland, an environmental nonprofit that offers mentoring, education, and peer counseling to Black youth.
The Blueprint Foundation is just one of many Oregon environmental nonprofits that are led by people of colour. They have taken a different path than other organizations. These minority-led organizations use their culture and past to create opportunities for marginalized communities.
Since 2005, I have been a mentor. This means that I see students who started with me as high school freshmen and are now going to college to study environmental science. Grant Coats: It is amazing to see their spark, to see them so engaged and interested in the subject, it makes me feel emotional just thinking about it.
Blueprint is also among the 70 environmental organizations in Oregon that have partnered with Earth Day Oregon to raise funds for Friday.
A NEW WAY TO SHARE OLD WISDOM
Indigenous peoples have been telling the tale of the South Wind, and the Dandelion since the beginning of time.
According to legend, the wind fell in love with Dandelion, a beautiful woman with golden hair and lush green hair, who was growing in a spring meadow. Dandelions golden hair and green coat turned white when the wind returned to their meadow in the spring. Dandelions’ hair was blown out by the wind, leaving her sad and isolated. The wind had never even told her that he was in a relationship.
Dandelion was astonished to see hundreds of her children thriving on the hillside when she looked out across the meadow.
This is one of many stories that Wisdom of the Elders, an Indigenous-led environmental non-profit, has been collecting as part of a digital multimedia effort.
The story is about the many medicinal uses that the dandelion has. The South Wind was said have a burning feeling in his heart. The dandelion can treat heartburn. However, it should also be used to express love right now, before it’s gone.
These stories may vary from region to region and tribe to tribe, but it’s still Traditional Ecological Knowledge. This knowledge connects us to the natural world and the value each species brings to the people who have adapted and evolved in these ecosystems, Valerie Goodness, Tsalagi Ojibwe, now a member of the Wisdom of the Elders. A recorded version of the storyCaptured by the organization in 2017.
Karina Ceron is a communications specialist for Wisdom of the Elders. She said that keeping stories like the Goodness stories was a way to resist centuries of oppression.
Cultural droughts have hit the Native community. Ceron stated that the government has taken away our culture and it has worked in many ways. These stories and this culture have been lost to the people.
Tribal communities will benefit from Traditional Ecological Knowledge, which is the body of environmental knowledge that Indigenous people have accumulated over the millennia. It will not only serve to recall the past, but also to prepare for the future.
Ceron stated that the most affected by climate change in Oregon are often Indigenous people and people of color.
Because they are at the frontlines of climate change, the reservations are the first to feel the effects. Droughts have a profound impact on reservations, much before they reach places like Portland.
Wisdom of the Elders is more than just collecting oral histories. Through internships that are focused on Traditional Ecological Knowledge and medicinal plants, the group gives Indigenous people hands-on experiences.
Wisdom Workforce is a company that trains workers in environmental rehabilitation. It offers internships and employment opportunities. The company focuses on building job skills and connecting with employers in this sector. Wisdom Workforce offers participants a variety of ways to view nature, not just through the lense of Western science but in a holistic manner that is familiar to Indigenous people long before colonizers arrived.
Ceron stated that as an Indigenous organization, we are very concerned about the health and longevity Earth. We may have all the wisdom and knowledge in the world, but it doesn’t matter if we can’t pass that knowledge on to the communities from which it came.
DEEP GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING STATEMENT
Candace Avalos has witnessed the effects of climate change on minority communities in Portland firsthand and is working to improve their future.
Avalos serves as the executive director for Verde, an environmental nonprofit that advocates for residents of Cully, Northeast Portland’s most diverse enclaves. It is also one of the most heavily affected by pollution.
Avalos stated that Verde isn’t limited to advocating for Cully residents. It is trying to make advocates out of them.
We have a deep grassroots organizing style, said Avalos, who is also an occasional columnist for The Oregonian/OregonLive. We are encouraging Cully residents to speak up about their neighborhood and to take part in changing the climate.
Since its inception in 2005 the organization has had success. It once offered job skills development through its own native plant nursery, landscaping company, and general contracting business. The pandemic economy ravaged the nursery and landscaping businesses, but Verde Builds is a strong contracting firm.
Students with the Multnomah Youth Cooperative assist in Verde’s rain garden and participate in the group’s Naturescape program.Courtesy/Verde
Verde has also had recent success in advocacy. House Bill 2021 was passed through Verde’s support. It aims to eliminate climate-warming emission from Oregon’s electrical grid by 2040. Verde also supported Senate Bill 1536. This limits the restrictions landlords can place upon portable air conditioners. The bill also calls on the creation of a program that distributes air conditioners and filters to people in need during heat emergencies.
Verde joined a coalition of advocacy groups to take action against Owens-Brockway. This corporation operates a huge glass-recycling factory in Cully, which has been spewing polluting for years. After a vigorous campaign by neighborhood advocates the company reached an agreement with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality in order to either close down or install pollution controls this summer.
Avalos stated that Verdes’ success is due to the fact that people from minorities can see themselves in the organization’s work.
Verde is run by me, a woman from both the Black community and the Latino community. The majority of our staff comes from the communities we are trying to serve, she explained. It is important for us to practice what we preach.
A BLUEPRINT TO CHANGE
Derron Coles is the executive director of The Blueprint Foundation. His organization aims to develop environmental job skills for Black youth, from cradle through career.
WISE stands for witnessing, investigating, solving, and educating.
Blueprint organizes trips along the coast and to parks like Silver Falls State Park for Black children so they can see nature with people like them, Coles stated. The kids then investigate the environment, looking for signs of pollution and other environmental monitoring.
These investigations naturally lead to solutions, fulfilling WISE’s solve aspect. The organization has helped groups plant trees, create rain gardens, and weatherize buildings.
Coles stated that they are developing these skills in the context of developing projects in their own communities.
The educational component is last.
Coles said that we want them to be environmental advocates and, eventually, role models for the younger children. They are learning to codify their knowledge and becoming comfortable sharing what they know with their communities.
Students from The Blueprint Foundation plant garlic at Mudbone Farm in Corbett Oregon. They also learn about farming.Courtesy/The Blueprint Foundation
The organization also provides internships and career opportunities for older students and adults.
Coles, who is also the Blueprint program coordinator, stated that one of the main goals for the organization was to remove barriers for children who don’t often see others who look like themselves in nature.
Coles stated that each cultural community has its own traditions, connections to nature, and ways we gather and commune with nature. A welcoming space is essential if we want people to reconnect with the natural world. Students sometimes feel unsafe going out into nature due to the stereotypical views of Black people.
Coles stated that making students feel comfortable in situations where they are historically excluded will have a positive impact on their future career prospects, not just for field trips.
He explained that students are prepared for these spaces when they do direct work with them. Instead of saying, “Here go, do this research without any preparation,” we say, “This culture of environmental research is not always necessary.” These are some ways that we can change this space, improve our community, and help the planet.
Coles stated that they were trying to reduce barriers for them, especially those of being Black people in a white environment. We were also teaching them to navigate this space without losing ourselves, without assimilating and while making the space more equitable for the next generation.
THE EARTH DAY COMMUNITY
As Earth Day nears, all three organizations Wisdom of the Elders, Verde, and The Blueprint Foundation are teaming up with Earth Day Oregon to raise awareness and funds.
Avalos said Verde is running a month-long giving campaign and looking to fill a seat on its board.
We encourage people to use their energy throughout the day and put resources into communities like ours in order to build climate resilience. She also mentioned that Verde will be holding a raffle to giveaway outdoor gear donated to it by Patagonia, its corporate sponsor.
Wisdom of the Elders will also host an online raffle, with prizes such as Womyns Wellness Garden seed packets and vouchers from Come Thru Market. This farmers market in Southeast Portland promotes Black and Indigenous farmers.
The Blueprint Foundation will partner with Northeast Portlands Steeplejack Brewing. This brewery will donate 10% of food sales to the organization and 15% of beer purchases on Earth Day. Grant Coats, a Blueprint student, said that the day will not be any different from any other day.
She said that Earth Day is every day for everyone.
Kale Williams; [email protected]; 503-294-4048; @sfkale
