Executive Summary

Front and Centered is a leading force in addressing the disproportionate and increasingly devastating impact of climate change and pollution on communities of color throughout Washington state. We are the nation’s largest statewide environmental coalition comprised entirely of organizations led by and based in communities of color. Our community includes the farmworker who is sickened by smoke from wildfires…the tribal members whose streams no longer bear salmon…the mother in public housing whose asthmatic child struggles to breathe…the senior citizen for whom a record-setting heat wave could mean hospitalization or even death. Our community includes all marginalized people for whom climate change and environmental degradation negatively impacts health, economic stability, cultural traditions, and quality of life. As an organization founded, led, and staffed by people of color, we hold deep and personal knowledge of the challenges and struggles of the communities we serve. Similarly, our leaders and staff hold a connection with our community that is built on trust and shared life experience. Most of all, we have delivered real results by successfully spearheading groundbreaking legislation ensuring that all environment-related decisions by state agencies prioritize and substantively include people of color and others who are most vulnerable and negatively affected. We have generated and distributed well over $1 million to support local communities in addressing their most urgent environmental challenges, while also helping to shape the Governor’s Clean Energy Strategy, which is emerging as a nationwide model for a Just Transition to a more equitable, democratic, and sustainable world.

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