 Campaigns > Statewide Pilot Programs > Florida
***FACE Justice Tour Member in the News!***
CHEJ’s Florida Children’s Health Community Organizer: Vanessa Baden.
Vanessa Baden, a Florida native, is a graduate of Florida State University with a BS Degree in Sociology. She has served as an organizer for organizations such as the Florida NAACP, Student Coalition for Justice, and the Obama for America Presidential Campaign. She is currently in graduate school, obtaining a Masters of Divinity.
Check out what CHEJ is up to in Florida this year:
FACE Justice Tour: The FACE Justice (Florida Action for a Clean Environment and Justice) tour has officially began and people across Florida who are fighting harder than ever to make their communities safe and healthy are coming together to take action. Three South Florida communities have been working since January to create meaningful and powerful events in their own communities to support this statewide initiative.
FACE Justice Tour Schedule:
March 30, 2009: The FACE Justice Tour will officially launch in the community of Wingate in Fort Lauderdale on MARCH 30TH, 2009. Concerned citizens of Wingate and Lincoln Park communities along with the Legal Aid of Broward County will be holding a community meeting to discuss the impacts of the Wingate Superfund site and a proposed charter school that developers are attempting to site on this Superfund location. In attendance will be our own Executive Director, Lois Gibbs. The meeting will center around the current state of the Wingate Superfund Site and community impacts on the health of those near it as well as setting goals and a plan of action on how to solve these community problems.
View footage from this powerful event as Lois Gibbs speaks about the community's efforts to stop the siting of a charter school just steps from a known superfund site. Click here
Don't Know much about the Wingate Superfund Site? Check out this Fact Sheet about the background, the problems surrounding the community, and what citizens are asking for.
To keep updated on the FACE Justice Tour join our listserve.
Disney Go Green: Through the efforts of people just like you, who care about the health of our children, the Disney Go Green campaign is in full swing and making good progress (and having lots of fun in the process). Ask Disney to eliminate toxic cleaning products from all their parks, hotels, and restaurants today and keep checking back from new ways to get involved throughout the year!
Community Assistance: Since our founding, CHEJ's experienced organizing staff has helped thousands of community groups form, grow and win local fights. We provide personal assistance over the phone, in person, and over the Internet, to help individuals form a group, define their goals, and develop a plan to achieve them. By providing groups with the tools they need to organize and win, CHEJ assists community based groups in carrying out their fights in their own self-sufficient way.
Statewide Environmental Health Summit: At the end of 2009 we will hold a statewide summit to discuss what we learned on our year long travels throughout the state and decide on how to take action to find real solutions and prevent harm.
Past Year’s Events
In 2005 we held three regional meetings in Orlando, Miami and Tallahassee to learn about ongoing work in the state, and to provide a space for individual groups to share their areas of focus and connect with each other. A working group formed from those meetings and assisted in putting on the 2006 Environmental Health and Economic Justice Conference in Winter Park, Orlando, wherein sixty state and local activists made connections with each other, led trainings and plenary discussions, and participated in workshops.
The conference spurred the formation of two working groups, the Florida Alliance for Healthy Indoor Environments (FAHIE, mentioned above), a group committed to reducing toxic chemicals from children’s environments, and the Clean Energy Future, a collaboration of clean energy activists.
The Florida Alliance for Healthy Indoor Environments, or FAHIE, created an introductory packet of green cleaning materials for schools and childcare centers, and brochures on the impacts of toxic chemicals in traditional cleaners. FAHIE has met with several childcare facilities, a Catholic school, and two janitorial unions to share the information and to stimulate school leadership to explore safer alternatives for maintenance procedures and products
Clean Energy Future collaborated to host screenings of the energy conservation and awareness documentary KiloWatt Ours in thirteen cities across the state. Group members activities and successes battling coal fired power plant construction in Taylor County, St. Lucie and Okachobee; working with legislators for a healthy and responsible state energy plan; fighting to halt off-shore drilling and more, continues to keep them incredibly busy and connected.
> See other local grassroots work in Florida.
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