Happy International Women's Day! 

We are excited to announce three more honorees for the New York City's Environmental Justice Alliance's (NYC-EJA) 25th Anniversary Gala. They are:  Alexie Torres-Fleming, Executive Director of Access Strategies Fund, Omar Freilla, Founder of Green Worker Cooperatives, and Mathy Stanislaus, former Assistant Administrator in EPA's Office of Land and Emergency Management. Stay tuned as we announce all the honorees in our Magnificent Seven leading up to the event! To see our first two honorees, click here. 

Be sure to purchase tickets to the celebration. Expect cocktails, empanadas, peach cobbler, dancing and more!

Alexie is an activist, community organizer, public speaker and urban planner from the South Bronx, New York with over 25 years of experience in social justice leadership in low-income communities of color.  She also brings over 10 years' experience in the philanthropic sector as a foundation executive director, board member, and senior fellow. Her life's work has been dedicated to the intersections of faith, economic and racial justice, democratic change, youth organizing, women and supporting the leadership of communities of color.  Alexie came to Massachusetts in 2014 as Harvard University Loeb Fellow where she explored how community organizing can inform urban planning strategies.  A nationally sought-after speaker, Alexie has received numerous awards throughout her career, including the 2008 Rockefeller Foundation's Jane Jacobs Medal for New Ideas and Activism; The Caritas Medal from the Vincentian Society for her service to the poor; and the "Servitor Pacis-Servant of Peace" award from the Permanent Observer Mission of the Vatican to the United Nations. In January 2009, Alexie was named one of "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World" by the Utne Reader. She is founder of the nationally recognized Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, a NYC-EJA member organization in the Bronx, as well as co-founder of the Bronx River Alliance and the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance.  In September of 2015, President Obama appointed Alexie to serve as an advisor on the White House Council of Faith and Neighborhood Partnerships. Alexie is a former NYC-EJA board member. 

Omar Freilla has a knack for blazing trails and a passion for community self-determination; personal transformation; and creating solutions to social injustice. He is the founder of Green Worker Cooperatives and creator of the academy model of cooperative development. Omar has over 13 years of experience in cooperative & green business development with an equal number of years as an organizer challenging environmental racism, classism, and sexism. He was NYC-EJA's Transportation Coordinator, and  a founding board member of both Sustainable South Bronx and the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives and founding advisory board member of the Democracy At Work Institute and the Story of Stuff Project.  He co-curated the NYC portion of the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a project of the Guggenheim Museum.  His writings have appeared in numerous books, blogs, and articles and he has been featured in several documentaries, including Leonardo DiCaprio's environmental documentary "The 11th Hour".  Omar has received numerous awards for his work, including the Rockefeller Foundation's Jane Jacobs Medal for New Ideas and Activism and inclusion in various "Power 100" lists published by magazines such as Ebony, Essence, and The Root.  He holds a Masters degree in Environmental Science from Miami University of Ohio and a B.S. from Morehouse College where he also founded the organization Black Men for the Eradication of Sexism. Omar enjoys making things grow as a loving father, husband and gardener - inspiration for his latest project, co-founding The Bronx Unschool School - the Bronx's soon-to-be first democratic free school and parent-teacher cooperative.

In Formation

NYC-EJA and our member organization UPROSE are co-sponsoring a national Climate Action Conference where we will be speaking on several plenary panels. Among the speakers will be Bernie Sanders (by video), Bill McKibben, Mark Ruffalo, and Reverend Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus. The conference will take place next Friday to Saturday, March 10-11th -  get your tickets now.