Help Los Angeles Win the Cool City Challenge
while empowering your community to be more resilient.
Deadline: Friday, October 22, 2021
As we continue to face the impacts of climate change — from more extreme heat days to an increase in wildfires to a rising sea level — it’s more important now than ever to empower communities to create resiliency solutions that fit their specific needs, while simultaneously accelerating Los Angeles’ pathway to carbon neutrality by 2030.

The UCLA Sustainable LA Grand Challenge has partnered with the City of Los Angeles Climate Emergency Mobilization Office and the Neighborhood Council Sustainability Alliance to win $1 million from the Empowerment Institute to support communities in climate resiliency capacity building and accelerate our city’s carbon neutrality goal to 2030. 

The city of Los Angeles is a finalist in California’s Cool City Challenge competition, but we cannot win unless we secure at least 200 cool “block” leaders throughout the city by Friday, October 22, 2021.
What is a Cool Block Leader?

A Cool Block Leader is someone who lives in the city of Los Angeles and who commits to building a stronger community with your neighbors, expanding or capitalizing on your leadership skills and improving the quality of life in your neighborhood using a proven neighbor-to-neighbor model that has helped thousands of people make their neighborhoods safer and healthier, prepare for disasters, save money and lighten their environmental impact. You can green your neighborhood, make it safer to walk in or decide with your neighbors to do whatever is right for your community. 

Learn more about the Call for Cool Block Leaders here.

How does the Cool City Challenge and Cool Block Leaders work?

If Los Angeles wins the challenge, Cool Block Leaders will have all of the resources you need to lead this effort on your block. Cool Blocks LA will support you, and is a free five-month, nine-meeting action-based program that is self-directed by the Cool Block Leader and a team of five to eight households, recruited by the Cool Block Leader on your block (defined as both sides of the street up to the corners, a cul-de-sac, an apartment building, or a floor within a student residential building (dorm)).

A meeting is hosted and facilitated by a different team member on your block in their home (or via Zoom) every two weeks with the support of a step-by-step meeting guide. Each 90-minute to two-hour meeting focuses on a distinct topic connected to reducing your carbon footprint, conserving water, preparing for disasters or improving the quality of life in your neighborhood. Every Cool Block Leader will be trained and have ongoing coaching and support. The time required is about three to four hours per week for five months, beginning in either January, May or September 2022.

Check out this video about pilot Cool Blocks, including one from Los Angeles.

Learn more now by attending one of the Cool Block Cafés before the Oct. 22, 2021 sign-up deadline. Choose a date and time to attend an informational Café here.

How do I sign up?

If you live in Los Angeles city and are ready to sign up to be a Cool Block Leader, you can SIGN UP NOW.

Remember, the only action needed now is to commit and sign up. If Los Angeles wins, the programming will begin in January, May or September 2022.

Join us in being a part of the solution while growing your leadership skills and creating a more livable community. Please sign up by October 22, 2021.

Los Angeles Cool City Challenge “Moonshot Team” members hail from the following organizations:
About Us: The Sustainable LA Grand Challenge empowers UCLA faculty, students and staff to work across disciplines in partnership with real world stakeholders to discover, co-develop and implement innovative solutions to transform Los Angeles to the most sustainable megacity by 2050. Our vision is for Los Angeles to be the most livable, equitable, resilient, clean and healthy megacity, and an example for the world.