Grassroots Grants

Founded by community members, Hānai Kaiāulu (HK) (Hanai is things that feed you; should be returned to the land) is the brainchild of Kumu (teacher) Pieper and five students from Nanakuli High and Intermediate School. At the onset of the pandemic, Kumu Pieper created ample opportunities for student outreach to promote the importance of stewardship of the ʻāina and cultural sites within our kaiaulu (community). As a student-led non-profit, HK supports a healthy transition where food is never wasted, but returned to the soil for the next cycle of life. Through natural processing and recycling of food waste, HK works to restore soil health and viability.

A partner in our Unbottle Water campaign and effort to protect Strawberry Creek in the San Bernardino National Forest from water extraction, Save Our Forest Association is an all-volunteer organization that has a history of protecting the mountains from development and industry, organizing with San Bernardino County and the US Forest Service

An ecological health organization that helps people take care of their own health through restoring and protecting native ecosystems, particularly damaged prairies, plains, and waters. GPRC bridges ecological work and social work, and accomplishes conservation and restoration through human well-being, particularly via paid outdoor green jobs and nature-based work therapy for formerly incarcerated young people. Since October 1999, we have completed ecological preservation and restoration projects in South Dakota, New Mexico, and Texas, with Texas as our home and base model, as well as taught Ecological Health practices and principles nationwide.

Donation made in support of the victims of the devastating 2023 wildfires on Maui, HI.

Brings community-centered farming to concrete jungles that lack adequate access to healthy food through the urban farms, hoop houses, and chickens his organization manages. They recently acquired adjacent condemned buildings to transform into community centers. Plantation Parks Urban Farm is growing in acres, budget size and network. Story of Stuff sees the strengthening of decentralized systems that empower communities towards food sovereignty and local, packaging-free food is a significant way to de-plasticize the way we access and consume food. 

An emerging organization committed to support descendant communities in the river parishes working together to dismantle the legacies of slavery and to achieve a healed and liberated future. 

Houston grassroots community-based Environmental Justice organization dedicated to the eradication of toxic multigenerational harm on communities living along the fenceline of industry.

Founder and Executive Director of Fenceline Watch, Yvette Arellano is a Mexican American Gulf Coast organizer who was featured in Story of Stuff’s Emmy-winning documentary The Story of Plastic. Currently, Yvette is leading efforts in Houston, home of the largest petrochemical complex in the nation, to help the city’s most vulnerable communities on the petrochemical expansion fueled by plastic production.

New California-based non-profit organization Plastic Free Future is dedicated to the reduction and elimination of plastic pollution through promoting reusable alternatives and focusing on education to underserved communities.

With programs in Belize, the Bahamas and the US Virgin Islands, Sea of Life supports local communities working to protect and restore oceans in the Caribbean. Their mission is to support and develop locally led ocean conservation projects and business solutions in the Caribbean. Sea of Life envisions the Caribbean as a region of ocean-focused partnerships, building resilient economies and vital communities.

This new organization supports local communities working to protect and restore oceans in the Caribbean through their innovative “Plastic Solutions Academy.” Sea of Life is founded and co-led by two Caribbean-American women. Paulita Bennett-Martin is a Belizean American of Yucatec Maya ancestry from the Corozal District of Belize. Natalie Maillis is a Bahamian American with her roots in the Greek community on the island of Abaco. The team focuses on bringing programming and partnerships to historically oppressed and marginalized stakeholders and communities.

We continue to support Valley Improvement Projects in their work, advocating for Social and Environmental Justice in Stanislaus County and the Central Valley, and our partnership around the “Burning Injustice” short documentary project.

A Break Free From Plastic Environmental Justice member and the lead frontline organization on the ground in East Palestine. In their own words they will, “Organize around this crisis for the movement and empower residents and workers who have been screwed by corporate greed one too many times. We want to help with legal representation, storytelling/building, empowering civic action, and helping the community build sustainable autonomy and justice after this event.”

Their mission is to improve the quality and health of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers. They are planning to do water testing / monitoring and are speaking out about the petrochemical industry’s role in the East Palestine crisis.

Fair Shake is providing legal support and community outreach to those affected by the East Palestine crisis. They are the nation’s first 501(c)(3) nonprofit environmental law firm incubator with the mission to open the doors of environmental justice. They provide client-centered legal representation regardless of income with an emphasis on community empowerment.

Longtime ally in Story of Stuff’s Troubled Waters coalition that is campaigning to reclaim public water sources from corporate water bottlers, and a previous Grassroots Grantee. Unbottle and Protect is currently engaged in active campaigning around a Chaffee County water site, and the grant is to offset some of the associated financial costs. 

Fighting the PureCycle plastic chemical recycling feedstock factory from being set up in their community, against the will of the community. 

One Winter Garden supports a concept of unity and participation whereby individuals from within East Winter Garden and other areas of Winter Garden and West Orange come together to advocate for our historic community.

Sustainable agriculture and nonprofit plant nursery, promoting locally grown food and raising awareness about how produce travels thousands of miles to reach a supermarket. Donations go toward opening more school gardens and educational programs in Northeast Florida.

Since The Story of Stuff was founded in and is headquartered in Berkeley, this grant to the Sogorea Te Land Trust acknowledges our office sits on unceded Ohlone territory of Huchiun. This indigenous, women-led organization recently reclaimed five acres of land owned by the City of Oakland. Under their Indigenous Stewardship, the land will immediately be used for natural resource restoration, cultural practices, and public education.

East Yards for Environmental Justice is a leader in the statewide effort to shut down California’s two last incinerators, one of which is based in their own backyard in Long Beach, CA. They are a key coalition partner of Valley Improvement Project. 

The Ecology Center is a nonprofit organization that focuses on improving the health and the environmental impacts of urban residents. Ecology Center has been a key partner of Story of Stuff’s in the Break Free from Plastic movement. 

The Carrizo Comecrudo live by the mission of preserving, maintaining, protecting, and offering services that will better tribal communities to overcome the erasure of the Original People of Texas. They promote wellness and health by providing services in times of crisis, fighting the fossil fuel industry and petrochemical buildout in ancestral lands.

In order to improve the health and welfare of humans, animals, communities and the environment, Plastic Free Delaware aims to eliminate the scourge of plastic pollution in Delaware through education & outreach, awareness building events, and policy initiatives with a current focus on single-use plastics and encouraging the principles of a zero waste culture.

Seed funding to support a new organization focused on supporting and facilitating unifying actions that promote healthy relationships between humans & environment through voluntary action, ecocentrism, creativity, and more. Programming includes school recycling and environmental education training, upcycling workshops, and DIY arts events that promote reuse. 

The Mission of IMPACT is to increase civic participation in impoverished communities, encouraging engaged citizenship and civic responsibility through volunteering and service-learning. This funding is to support hosting repair cafes and a community bike program called Newburg Rise and Ride. 

Cooperation Jackson is building a solidarity economy in Jackson, Mississippi, anchored by a network of cooperatives and worker-owned, democratically self-managed enterprises. The organization is deeply involved in the current drinking water crisis in Jackson, deploying methods of water catchment and filtration in community centers and homes, as well as organizing for public water reform.

For Ground Up Advocacy Bootcamp, an inclusive, engaging, and informative educational training for student activists looking to make their college campuses herbicide free.

For a grassroots campaign to inform the South Texas community about releases of ethylene oxide, a carcinogenic air toxin, by a local commercial sterilizer plant known as Midwest Sterilization Corp.

Pipelines to Plastic Project addresses the ExxonMobil Cracker Plant in Corpus Christi, and Desalination Plants in the Bay and Gulf of Texas to help the Native community survive this Pandemic of COVID, Petrochemicals, and the fossil fuel industries with goals for a more sustainable living.

Long term partner in our Nestle’s Troubled Waters campaign, funds are to help pay down the remaining balance of a legal debt from an aggressive campaign against Nestle’s privatization efforts in the Great Lakes region so they can transition their focus back to advocacy, education, and base building.

Great Plains Restoration Council (GPRC) is an ecological health organization that helps people take care of their own health through restoring and protecting native ecosystems, particularly damaged prairies, plains, and waters. GPRC is a founder of the “Ecological Health” movement, teaches Ecological Health practices and principles around the country, and uses literary arts and other media to broaden awareness and community engagement. Projects include research and healing-centric ecological restoration and nature-oriented programming for youth who are formerly incarcerated or at risk of being incarcerated.

Project: A permanent home for Sure We Can; a campaign to raise funds to buy the site currently being rented.

Sure We Can is the only non-profit, unhoused-friendly container redemption center in New York. The space serves more than 400 canners, provides educational activities for schools and universities, and promotes sustainability, recycling, and composting. The canners – people who collect used cans and bottles to redeem a 5 or 10 cent deposit – who call Sure We Can home remove tens of millions of plastic, aluminum and glass containers all over New York City every year and are integral members of the community cooperative. 

The current space rented by Sure We Can is an ideal 12,000 sq ft lot in Brooklyn, in the heart of a community of canners. Despite this, the organization has been on the verge of eviction in the past, and its members face gentrification and displacement from the area. In response, Sure We Can is raising funds to permanently buy the lot after securing institutional grants to cover part of the purchase.

Project: PROJECT ACCESS: Compost OJT • High Tunnel Prep.

Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm (PPHUF) is a Black-led and serving, intergenerational organization that aims to:

Create a safe and healthy environment for every elementary school child and their immediate family in Park Heights.

Build “AgriHoodBaltimore,” a thriving marketplace, community shared farming (CSF) and urban agriculture training resource institute. 

Grow 300,000 pounds of food, improve our supply chain, decentralize our cold storage, expand processing and ensure sustainable food security for our community of children and older adults in Park Heights.

Claim Our Space Now is Black-led and serves Afro-diasporic immigrant communities, low-income communities, and the homeless. The initiative Claim Our Food Now seeks to provide consistent community care in the form of food security for Caribbean immigrant families living in New York City, some of whom are facing the threat of deportation. The project will donate culturally specific and nutritious foods to support the community’s immediate needs while creating sustainable community programs to educate and motivate around civic engagement.

GrowHouse Community Design and Development Group empowers Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people and their allies to become developers of their neighborhoods through collective ownership of key assets such as real estate, land, essential businesses, and cultural institutions. A current goal is to execute “When We Create” – a curriculum focused on Equity Centered Community Design.  A key part of this learning will include community ownership of long-vacant lots and their transformation into community spaces for gathering, food growing, and other activities.

“When We Create” will educate, train, and challenge Latinx, Black, and Indigenous youth to become leaders in designing healthy and racially equitable communities by guiding young leaders through a project-based, design-focused curriculum in which they develop 21st century skills and use them to enact change in their communities.

Project: East Brooklyn Pro-Environment Campaign

East New York 4 Gardens is a Black-led and serving organization, with a mission to build a better environment by educating the community through environmental justice demonstrations and instructions. This includes growing herbs, composting, teaching earth and environmental studies, water irrigation system, recycling education with the Crush it Crusade (recycling education project), a project of Can’d Aid (which distributes canned water in times of disaster).

This is a donation to the newly formed Amazon Labor Union to support their current historic organizing work. The union founder, Chris Smalls, is a former guest on Story of Stuff-produced series The Shift.

The Amazon Labor Union (ALU) is Black-led, with a multiracial membership of mostly BIPOC, low-income workers. ALU is an independent, worker-led, democratic labor union founded by Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York. The union was formed in April 2021 by a group of concerned workers led by ALU President Chris Smalls. 

ALU has grown and won a historic victory in their first election at Amazon site JFK8, with the support of over 2,500 workers. With the signed support of thousands more workers, ALU successfully filed for an election at a second site, LDJ5, and recruited over 100 people into an Organizing Committee – making historic inroads into unionizing the Amazon workforce. 

Valley Improvement Project (VIP) was founded in 2012 in Modesto in Stanislaus County in response to local incineration and waste issues in their community, and the negative health impact of the remaining incinerators in the state of California. The funding is to support their campaign to shut down the Stanislaus County Incinerator, one of the remaining two in California. Story of Stuff is currently in post- production of the documentary Burning Injustice featuring VIP’s multigenerational work. 

Founded by Sharon Lavigne, a retired special needs teacher and winner of the 2021 Goldman Environmental Prize, Rise St. James is a grassroots organization based in St. James, Louisiana. Sharon has dedicated herself to keeping multibillion dollar chemical plants out of her community. We’re so proud to tell her story in the next installment of The World We Need, an animated series that offers a vivid look at the inspiring frontline activists protecting America’s communities against environmental degradation and racism.

Over the past two years, we’ve provided $10,000 to Rise St. James to support their fight for racial and environmental justice. In addition to this grant support, our Community joined Rise St. James’ campaign to stop Formosa Plastics from building a massive plastics factory on the banks of the Mississippi River in St. James, Louisiana. A new petrochemical plant would pose serious public health risks to this predominantly African American community, due to the toxic discharge of chemicals into the air and water. 5,000 of our community members helped deliver a powerful message to the Army Corps of Engineers against Formosa, adding their names to a total of 40,000 comments urging the Corps to revoke the project’s permit. The Army Corps has since suspended Formosa’s construction license. The campaign is ongoing.

Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation (MCWC) is a grassroots, all-volunteer group dedicated to the conservation of water into the 7th generation and beyond. MCWC first organized in 2000 to protect water resources in Mecosta County, where Nestlé Waters North America was extracting 400 gallons of water per minute. While nearby communities like Flint lack access to safe, public, drinking water, Nestlé (now BlueTriton) is seeking to ramp up its water extraction, leading to an ongoing fight to keep corporate bottlers out of this area.

MCWC participated in our March 2021 virtual rally, and has been a Nestlé’s Troubled Waters campaign partner since 2017. In Q1 of 2021, we supported MCWC with a $4,000 grant to help offset the costs of filing a legal complaint over their state environmental regulator’s dismissal of MCWC’s challenge to Nestlé’s permit to draw water in Evart, MI. This is the second grassroots grant received by MCWC since 2017, an example of Story of Stuff Project’s long term commitment to supporting local organizations.

Community Water Justice is a network of frontline communities against water privatization in Maine. Determined to secure protections, rights, and accessibility to groundwater, this group focuses on educating the public about the integral significance of the water commons, proactively protecting the commons at the municipal level, and modernizing state laws to safeguard groundwater under public stewardship that takes into account the rights of Nature.

As one of our Nestlé’s Troubled Waters campaign partners, we have worked closely with Community Water Justice since 2018, and collaborated on key campaigns, communications, and events like our March 2021 virtual rally to raise awareness and funds for critical water site fights like Maine’s Evergreen Spring, and several others across North America.

Ten years ago, concerned citizens of Chaffee County rallied to put up a fight when Nestlé Waters North America applied for a permit to build a pipeline and extract water from Ruby Mountain Springs. Amid broken promises and bitter public opposition, Nestlé/BlueTriton is seeking to extend its permit to extract water for another decade. Now, Un-bottle & Protect continues to fight for the interest of Chaffee County residents by calling for an end to such permits once and for all.

Unbottle & Protect joined our March 2021 virtual rally as a featured partner, and has been a campaign partner for several years.

Our Santa Fe River is composed of concerned citizens working to protect the waters and lands supporting the aquifer, springs, and rivers within the watershed of the Santa Fe River. This volunteer-run organization promotes public awareness pertaining to the ecology, quality, and quantity of these iconic freshwater springs, which are threatened by Nestlé/BlurTriton’s push to increase withdrawals to over 1 million gallons a day.

We partner with Our Santa Fe Springs as part of our Nestlé’s Troubled Waters campaign, and are committed to supporting our campaign partners until access to safe drinking water becomes a public and universal right.

Ka’ala Farm restored an ancient agricultural complex in the Wai’anae Valley to produce taro in the same way that the indigenous people of this part of Hawaii did for centuries. For founder Eric Enos, the ancestral way of taro farming is a way to reconnect with the cycles of the land, protect the soil and water, and teach responsible stewardship to his people. Ka’ala Farm also serves as a cultural center, offering youth programs, internship opportunities, and counseling centers to help guide at-risk youth and struggling adults back into the community. 

We tell Eric’s story to restore land, water, and culture in the first installment of The World We Need video series.

SWaCH is a cooperative of wastepickers in India working together to improve their working conditions and build a society that is a society that is socially just, economically equitable, culturally plural, politically democratic, environmentally sustainable, peaceful and humane.

The mission of the Rio Grande International Study Center is to preserve and protect the Rio Grande-Rio Bravo, its watershed and environment, through awareness, advocacy, research, education, stewardship and bi-national collaboration for the benefit of present and future generations.

The Port Arthur Community Action Network, or “PACAN”, is an environmental justice advocacy and community development organization. PACAN is a 501(c)(3) certified, community based non-profit serving the City of Port Arthur, TX and surrounding areas.

Southern Sector Rising seeks to offer the marginalized residents of Dallas health equity by ending decades of racist zoning, forcing industrial polluters out of predominantly Black and Brown residential neighborhoods, and by more evenly distributing the pollution burdens of their city.

The AGUA Coalition is a regional, grassroots coalition of impacted community residents and allied non-profit organizations dedicated to securing safe, clean, and affordable drinking water for San Joaquin Valley communities.

AGUA was formed in 2006 in response to widespread contamination of valley drinking water. Residents saw the need to form a unified voice to push for solutions to address the root causes of drinking water contamination; share information on drinking water problems, opportunities, and solutions; and mobilize residents to take action

As in many agricultural regions, rural California communities face deep-rooted barriers to sustainable development that have been inadequately addressed by public policy. Since 1977, CIRS has focused on rural and agricultural issues, seeking sustainable solutions. They take particular pride in forging beneficial relationships with grassroots stakeholder organizations while maintaining the respect and cooperation of research institutions in the state. Agencies and policy makers also look to CIRS substantive analysis of current public policy issues.

Sure We Can is a non-profit recycling center, community space and sustainability hub in Brooklyn where canners, who are people that collect cans and bottles from to streets to make a living, come together with students and neighbors through recycling, composting, gardening and arts. Their mission is to support the local community, particularly the most vulnerable residents, and promote social inclusion, environmental awareness and economic empowerment. For over 10 years, Sure We Can has served the community of canners, and today it has evolved into a community center that promotes a sustainable urban culture and facilitates a circular economy.

The Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, formed in 1987, is a 501-c-3 nonprofit organization with a mission to organize and maintain a diverse grassroots organization dedicated to the improvement and preservation of the environment and communities through education, grassroots organizing and coalition building, leadership development, strategic litigation and media outreach. Their work encompasses much of West Virginia and the Ohio River Valley.

East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice (EYCEJ) is a community-based organization that works to facilitate self-advocates in East Los Angeles, Southeast Los Angeles and Long Beach. By providing workshops and trainings, EYCEJ prepares community members to engage in the decision-making processes that directly impact their health and quality of life. EYCEJ emerges from years of unheard community voices that have silently suffered the effects of pollution in their neighborhoods. Through grassroots organizing and leadership building skills, EYCEJ works to enable under-represented communities to be heard, which in turn influences policy change, policy makers and agencies that can institute health protective environmental justice policies.

Cooperation Jackson is an emerging vehicle for sustainable community development, economic democracy, and community ownership. Cooperation Jackson believes that we can replace the current socio-economic system of exploitation, exclusion and the destruction of the environment with a proven democratic alternative. An alternative built on equity, cooperation, worker democracy, and environmental sustainability to provide meaningful living wage jobs, reduce racial inequities, and build community wealth. It is our position and experience, that when marginalized and excluded workers and communities are organized in democratic organizations and social movements they become a force capable of making transformative social advances.

The purpose of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN) is to foster cooperation and communication between individual citizens and corporate and government organizations in an effort to assess and mend the environmental problems in Louisiana. LEAN’s goal is the creation and maintenance of a cleaner and healthier environment for all of the inhabitants of this state.

Azul is the only ocean conservation organization in the U.S. that focuses specifically on working within Latinx communities.  Using culturally relevant communication techniques, Azul leverages both localized grassroots and “grass tops” strategies to engage Latinxs as long term conservationists with a pragmatic and common sense approach to resources use and protection. Azul has been instrumental in driving several California-based policy “wins” including banning of single use plastic bags, banning the sale and possession of shark fins, and creating legal remedies that allow fining private property owners who illegally block public access to California’s beaches.

GreenLatinos is a national non-profit organization that convenes a broad coalition of Latino leaders committed to addressing national, regional and local environmental, natural resources and conservation issues that significantly affect the health and welfare of the Latino community in the United States.

GreenLatinos provides an inclusive table at which its members establish collaborative partnerships and networks to improve the environment; protect and promote conservation of land and other natural resources; amplify the voices of low-income and tribal communities; and train, mentor, and promote the current and future generations of Latino environmental leaders for the benefit of the Latino community and beyond.

Madhvi Chittoor, also known as “NoStyrofoamNinja,” is a passionate 10-year old environmental activist working to fight plastic pollution and climate change.

Overcoming the obstacles of 2020, the organizers of Indigenous People’s Day in Arizona were able to hold a virtual event with musicians, speakers, youth empowerment, art demonstrations, a virtual day of movement, and a virtual movie screening. The celebration of the Indigenous People remains vital to understanding the obstacles the community at large faces. Often their homes and communities are subject to outsider pollution and struggle to find recognition and protection from federal institutions. Coming together as a community despite systemic neglect is one of the most essential actions indigenous communities can take as they push to dismantle settler-colonialism.

The Northern Alameda County (NAC) Group considers urban environmental issues in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville, Alameda, Piedmont, and San Leandro. These issues can include environmental justice, air quality, the tree canopy, public trust lands, creeks, the San Francisco Bay and water, pollution and toxics, parks and open space, bird and wildlife habitat, green buildings and infrastructure, zero waste, plastics, clean and renewable energy, electrification, affordable housing, green and public transit, and natural-resource protection.

One small community in rural Louisiana is not fighting to keep just one polluter out, but over a dozen. St. Johns Parish in Louisiana faces a Mount Everest with multiple peaks. Rise St. James, founded by Sharon Lavigne, is currently seeking to end the permit given to Formosa Plastics for a new plastics facility. This largely black and impoverished community already fights the adverse health effects that plastic facilities emit into the air and water. Speak with Ms. Lavigne for a few moments and she will show you her list of neighbors and friends currently battling cancer and names of those who lost their lives. Ms. Lavigne makes it clear that her fight is not over. She continues to plan canvassing, virtual and in person events, as well as community competitions seeking to educate the youth about the many issues they face in Louisiana. An objective that has become all the more paramount in light of the international Black Lives Matter protests during the summer of 2020.

A small group of Native people from Texas serve the community as the Society of Native Nations, aiming to advocate and protect native land, culture, and teachings. They offer a workshop, Return to the Earth & Mold It “Break free from petrochemical products” with the goal of educating the community about the threats of the petrochemical industry. When the pandemic began impacting their community in March of 2020, Society of Native Nations took an active role in protecting their wisdom keepers, elders, elderly, homeless, and those with underlying health conditions. They began collecting and disbursing fresh food, medical supplies, hygiene supplies and computers for those students lacking access to their education. Starting new programs and continuing to progress other campaigns such as their Food for the Unhoused “Zero waste” project and Pipelines to Plastic Project cements this Society’s strength in defending and preserving their community though they face more challenges than ever.

Wellington Water Watchers is a non-profit organization founded in 2007 dedicated to the protection, restoration and conservation of drinking water in Ontario. They are primarily run by volunteer citizens from southern Ontario who are committed to the protection of local water and to educating the public about threats to the watershed. 

Combating the climate emergency requires a diverse and broad approach. SoCal 350 Climate Action, a coalition of over 100 groups in Southern California, began their fight against climate change in 2013. They pull together advocacy, education, and legislative initiatives. In 2019, The Story of Stuff was able to help SoCal 350 Climate Action produce a 7-Part Plastics Plague series which has evolved into an EcoJustice Radio show.

The Chicano Indigenous Community for Culturally Conscious Advocacy and Action is a cooperative organization which provide effective, supportive resources to low income residents, focusing on Chicano indigenous reconnection, environmental justice, and sacred site protection

Gabriel Paul’s Water (nə̀pi) Song of the Penobscot Nation translates to “water / we love you / thank you so much water / we respect you” and is beautifully sung by Gabe’s own niece, Leigh Neptune. The Penobscot Nation relies on the clean fresh water of the Penobscot River in order to maintain their communities health and traditions. This water has been threatened by Nestle and the State of Maine in rights based litigation. Community Water Justice, a network of dedicated activists throughout the state of Maine, joined the battle by hosting a Maine Water Security Summit to unite members from Community Water Justice, the Penobscot Nation, and the Sierra Club. Now, they are pressing forward with bulk water extraction legislation in Maine, source funding for an extensive aquifer system study and citizen scientists, and continue their outline for a water privatization research project. 

Cutting through the plains of Pennsylvania, a snake worms its ways over 30,000 miles and leaving carnage behind for the rural neighborhoods to clean up. The snake is 24-inch pipelines which would begin in Scio, Ohio and end at the Marcus Hook refinery commonly known as The Sunoco Logistics Mariner East Pipeline Project. The pipeline transfers approximately 770,000 barrels of natural gas liquids across the state everyday. 770,000 barrels of carnage through their neighbors yard. Through state game lands, lakes, rivers, sensitive wetlands, schools, farms, densely populated residential areas and rural homesteads which violates the rights of hundreds of thousands to clean air and water. While the pipeline’s activity is currently on hold due to legal proceedings, the affected community members are left to deal with the mess.

The Louisiana Bucket Brigade has supported fenceline communities in the state for 20 years. Founding Board members Margie Richard of Norco, Dorothy Jenkins and Shonda Lee of New Sarpy, and Founding Director Anne Rolfes incorporated the organization in 2000 with guidance from groups like Xavier University’s Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, Earthjustice, Communities for a Better Environment and the Sierra Club. From the first days of its inception, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade was inspired by people in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria who stand up to the devastation of oil production and gas flaring that continues to this day.

Wellington Water Watchers is a non-profit organization founded in 2007 dedicated to the protection, restoration and conservation of drinking water in Ontario. They are primarily run by volunteer citizens from southern Ontario who are committed to the protection of local water and to educating the public about threats to the watershed. 

La Placita was formed in Flint, MI in 2015 as a non-profit 501c3 organization dedicated to advocating for the Hispanic-Latino populations in Genesee County in the areas of education, cultural awareness and social needs.

Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation’s mission is to protect Michigan’s surface and ground waters from pollution, plunder, and privatization through education, advocacy, and action. Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation (MCWC) is a grassroots, non-profit, all-volunteer organization. MCWC organized in 2000 to protect our water resources from corporate theft; specifically, after the state granted Nestlé Waters North America a permit to withdraw 400 gallons per minute in Mecosta, MI. Through MCWC, local citizens began a legal battle that continued for seven years, limiting Nestlé’s grab of fresh water by the millions of gallons. Their work continues as they strive to protect the water of the commons from those who would pollute, plunder, or privatize.

The contemporary story of David and Goliath plants itself in the desert of Patagonia, New Mexico where the grassroots coalition must defy the odds and oppose the colossal fossil fuel industry. The Patagonia Area Resource Alliance (PARA) boldly leads the charge to protect their community and surrounding diverse ecosystem by working with local businesses and organizations to educate and collaborate with its citizens in opposing the various mining companies seeking access to the town’s water. PARA was able to produce a short film in order to educate and mobilize its citizens. Their work, however, is not over. Goliath still hovers over the small town.

The Our Water Campaign successfully canvased, educated, congregated, and communicated to the community of 300,000 and local legislators until Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro began holding the parties responsible for poisoning the residents of Pittsburg. However, he left some parties unaccounted for in his legal pursuit. Specifically, Veolia, the Paris-based water corporation responsible for the contamination. If they are not also held responsible for their role in polluting, the responsibility to “clean-up”, a laborious and costly task falls back on the same community already struggling to recover from the health and financial catastrophes at play.

The volcano known as Mount Shasta is part of watersheds for three rivers in Northern California.  The purity of the waters emanating from Mount Shasta has made the area a target for water and beverage bottling companies eager to profit from these resources. Upon hearing the news about Crystal Geyser Water Company’s purchase of the empty Coca-Cola Mt. Shasta facility in October 2013, a group of concerned community members joined together and formed We Advocate Thorough Environmental Review, more commonly known as W.A.T.E.R.  Having known about or actually experienced the many problems that occurred during the operation of the facility by Dannon Waters and Coca-Cola, these citizens have worked since to ensure that these problems would not reoccur.”

In the ash of devastating fire in September of 2014, the value of water to the small community of Weed in Northern California became the difference between life and death. Already struggling to rebuild, a small group of citizens realized that they didn’t actually own the water in Beaughan Springs and only two years later did the lumbar company, Roseburg Forest Products, command its power over political officials and control the water for bottling. Ravaged by fire, stripped of water, and now exposed to the toxins of water bottling facilities. The phoenix of this story, Water for Weed, has risen from the ashes with their sights on legal opposition and providing immediate relief to the fire department and families without clean water.