Sitting at the table: Prioritizing community in environmental justice work
PCJ in the Bay Fellowship Stories: Austin Shaw
It’s a warm August evening, with the smell of Zareen’s chicken tikka masala and paneer wafting through the meeting room. I’m a little nervous as I’m standing in front of representatives of community-based organizations (CBOs) that I’ve learned about throughout the whole summer.
With Kamille, my supervisor, I co-lead the EJ Network, which brings together CBOs that are in some way doing environmental justice work in their communities. The network is facilitated by Climate Resilient Communities (CRC). I’ve spent the last two weeks creating a training module that will be helpful to the CBOs, and now I’m about to go through my carefully crafted presentation to present the module.
As the training continues, network members continually ask questions and provide important comments, sparking nuanced conversations. I find myself abandoning my position at the front of the room, instead choosing to sit with the rest of the network members. At the meeting table, we collaborate on how to initiate environmental justice projects within our communities.
Going into my Partnerships for Climate Justice in the Bay Area Fellowship with CRC, I felt I already knew the importance of community and the knowledge it holds. My experience this summer gave a more tangible dimension to my understanding. One memory that comes to mind is when I attended a meeting for the Climate Change Community Team in the neighborhood of Alviso, located in San José. During the meeting, Alviso residents voiced their concerns about a recent housing project that had skipped the process of conferring with community members due to new provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act. In an aim to quickly rebuild after the Palisades fire, these new provisions to the CEQA bill ended up clearing a lot of red tape in regards to building projects. One of the practices that was cleared was considering public comments when approving a project. Now, communities like Alviso have less of a voice in the planning process.
The residents claimed the housing project would negatively impact their neighborhood, bringing traffic and air pollution. The Alviso residents knew their community the best and deserved for their insight to be considered by local planners. That meeting demonstrated the need for community knowledge to be at the forefront of decisions that directly impact them.
I brought this knowledge of the importance of community into my role at CRC this summer. My main role was to support the EJ Network. The network members wanted to learn more about the history of environmental justice and the environmental justice policies working today. So I developed a training on the environmental justice political landscape, detailing the current environmental justice policies at the federal, state, and local level.
Through my role at CRC, I helped make EJ policy more accessible to CBOs serving frontline communities. With Kamille, I also provided training on the grant writing process to the EJ Network. Together, the network members were able to apply for a mini-grant in the hopes of adding capacity to their organization to continue environmental justice work in their communities. The CBOs know how to support their communities the best, and through these trainings they are able to utilize policies and grants to further environmental justice initiatives.
This fellowship made me realize how important it is to be in community with people. As a Stanford student, it’s very easy to get caught up in the world that is Stanford and forget that there is a whole world outside of the Stanford bubble. I mean, here I was interacting with communities that lived within 30 minutes of me, yet I never would have interacted with them if it wasn’t for this fellowship. Throughout the summer, I was able to continually build relationships with community members. Part of working in public service is choosing to get out of your comfort zone and building relationships with those you might not normally interact with. And in a way, was abandoning my seat at the table that I regularly sit at—the Stanford community—and choosing to sit at a different table. Throughout the fellowship I learned that I value getting to know people outside of Stanford, hearing their triumphs and challenges, and supporting them through a sustainable relationship.
I loved working with Climate Resilient Communities this summer. I made so many lasting memories, from the early Saturday mornings taking the van to the Youth Climate Collective, to setting up for the Strategic Plan event, to playing with Cooper—Kamille’s dog—in the office. But when I look back on the summer, I think about the communities I connected to. Those connections that I made remind me how big a role connecting to the community should play when doing public service. Allowing yourself to sit down and collaborate with people is a great way to support them. I’ve learned to sit at the table with frontline communities in order to advocate with them in the future.
Austin Shaw is a sophomore pursuing a major in earth systems with a focus on human environmental systems. He is passionate about environmental justice, especially about ensuring all communities have equitable access to resources to adapt to climate change. Austin was a 2025 Partnerships for Climate Justice in the Bay Area (PCJ in the Bay) Fellow with Climate Resilient Communities, where he worked to strengthen their Resilient Leadership program as it prepared to expand its Environmental Justice Network comprised of community-based organizations in Santa Clara County.
