The New York City Environmental Justice Alliance (NYC-EJA), in partnership with the City University of New York (CUNY), has announced a $4 million gift from the Waverley Street Foundation to accelerate climate solutions led by those on the front lines of climate breakdown.

The NYC Climate Justice Hub will aid NYC-EJA, its members, and its campaigns in efforts to assist low-income and frontline communities of color disproportionately burdened by environmental and climate hazards and risks as they fight for environmentally driven policies and projects. Over the next two years, faculty, students, and scholars from the CUNY Graduate Center and campuses across the CUNY system will collaborate with NYC-EJA and community-based organizational members, including the Brooklyn Movement Center, El Puente, UPROSE, GOLES, the Point Community Development Corporation, and Nos Quedamos, through classes based on local climate issues and campaigns, a summer climate leadership academy, annual fellowships, public programming activities, and interdisciplinary research teams that serve frontline communities and solutions, prepare students for professions in the climate sector, and advance equitable climate solutions.

“By working together with NYC-EJA to strengthen the connection between CUNY faculty, students, and grassroots environmental justice movements, we’re helping to build critical mass around NYC-EJA’s transformative climate justice agenda,” said Kendra Sullivan, director of the Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center and a co-principal investigator of the grant. “The Waverley Street Foundation has shown tremendous wisdom in honoring the priorities and expertise of local actors and tremendous foresight in funding partnerships between community-based organizations and minority-serving institutions. I’m confident the projects we dream up together will prepare rising generations of NYC leaders to work collaboratively across sectors to navigate climate challenges as they arise with a justice-forward framework.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/FG Trade)