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PRESS RELEASE:
Focus the Nation and CLIF MOJO Award Three Innovative Young Leaders
$10,000 Grants to Propel Creative Global Warming Solutions into Action [more]
Clif Bar & Company is working to reduce their environmental impact in everything they do, from the field to the final product. Focus the Nation is dedicated to building a movement from the bottom up to create a national dialogue on Global Warming solutions. Together, we are collaborating on Project Slingshot so that now you have a chance to propel your ideas for Global Warming solutions forward. [Learn more]
Maya Donelson is a recent graduate from Syracuse University. She is dedicated to creating sustainable spaces and making our cities more livable. Since graduation she has undertaken a cross country cycling adventure, worked as an architectural designer at a ecological architecture firm, and currently interns with Oakland based nonprofit, Bay Localize, where she is exploring and contributing to the development of urban agriculture, living rooftops, rainwater catchment and solar power. Aside from interning with Bay Localize she is creating graphics, designing websites and working at Café Gratitude serving local, organic food. Maya resides in San Francisco and enjoys being outside, bicycling and exploring the Bay Area.Project Summary: Maya Donelson, Graze the Roof, San Francisco, CA, will integrate local organic food production and the efficiency gains of a green roof with an edible green roof at Glide, a San Francisco church and nonprofit located in the Tenderloin District serving low income community. Students from Glide's Training and Employment Services Youth Build Program will construct and maintain the garden. In addition to producing 1,440 lbs. of food in its first year, the rooftop will provide a natural sanctuary and a space to relax, inspire, educate and empower 200 homeless and low-income children between the ages of 5 and 18.
Richard Graves is a climate activist, social entrepreneur, and online journalist. He founded Fired Up Media to help youth leaders from around the world tell their stories in the fight against global warming and for a more just and sustainable world. He thinks that young people can use new media to create the revolutionary change necessary to solve global warming and has told people that at the World Bank, UN, CNN, and other stuffy institutions.Project Summary: Richard Graves, Fired Up Youth Action TV, Washington, D.C., will produce five minute news segments covering youth issues ranging from education, to politics, to jobs and the economy, to entertainment and culture – all through the lens of the most important challenges facing young people: the impact of global warming and the construction of a cleaner, more just economy and society. With contributors from around the country and traditional and new media distribution, Fired Up Youth Action TV will reach a broad audience of youth with stories they relate to, building the climate movement.
Jesse Hough is a junior General Science major at the University of Oregon. He has led and formed multiple groups that are actively working for a sustainable future. He has served as the chapter chair of the UO OSPIRG group, co-directed the UO Survival Center, worked to bring a bike library to the UO campus, sat on the UO Environmental Issues Committee and started the Sustainability Coalition on campus. Jesse is not only active on his own campus, he's also working to engage other campuses in the youth climate movement through the Cascade Climate Network, which he co-founded in 2007. Jesse has extensive experience organizing large events and especially enjoys empowering others to make positive change.Project Summary: Jesse Hough, Sunnyside Neighborhood Energy Project, Portland, OR, will run a summer "think-and-do tank" institute that will engage students to help advance an innovative, community-owned, thermal district energy system utilizing low carbon energy supplies to provide space heating and cooling and domestic hot water to a mixed residential/commercial neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. In partnership with Portland State University, Midtech Energy and the Cascade Climate Network, the project will identify and tackle obstacles to implementing a sustainable neighborhood energy system.