Tonight, the annual Brower Youth Awards ceremony will recognize six youth who have made major environmental contributions in their communities and beyond.
This year’s winners include:
- Jon Warnow, 23, of Burlington, Vt., who helped coordinate the Step It Up campaign for a National Day of Climate Action earlier this year.
- Erica Fernandez, 16, who campaigned against a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipeline that would have been routed through low-income neighborhoods near her hometown of Oxnard, Calif.
- Alexander Lin, 14, who created a permanent e-waste receptacle in his hometown of Westerley, R.I., and helped pass a statewide bill banning the dumping of e-waste.
- Rachel Barge, 21, who co-created The Green Initiative Fund at her school, the University of California, Berkeley, to secure more than $2 million over 10 years for sustainability projects on campus.
- Carlos Moreno, 19, of Dorchester, Mass., who worked to eliminate youth violence in Boston and create more opportunities for summer youth employment through the Summer Jobs Campaign.
- And, notably, actress Q’orianka Kilcher, 17, of Santa Monica, Calif., who used her celebrity from films like The New World to draw attention to human rights issues and environmental injustices, including the dumping of toxic wastewater into the Corrientes River basin in the Peruvian Amazon.
Congrats, kids. And keep up the good work!
