Get to know our new Pacific Northwest Field Organizer Grace Doleshel!

I spent most of my childhood in nature and always wanted to work to protect it. I began volunteering at Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium when I was 14 and from there was able to learn about the impacts of climate change both locally and globally. My time volunteering also allowed me opportunities to lobby for environmental protection bills. As I grew up, I also grew as an activist in many organizing spaces and fuly made the transition towards climate organizing during the global rise of Greta Thunberg’s climate strike movement. I was drawn to Our Climate, first as a student in their fellowship program, then as a staff member, due to the commitment made to have youth and frontline communities leading the fight for climate justice. The approach that Our Climate has taken provided me with a space to be fully authentic as a young person when it comes the many emotions that youth are facing in terms of climate justice and I am so excited to return to OC as an organizer and work to continue fostering authentic spaces for future cohorts of fellows and young organizers.

I am really proud of the personal work I have done towards inner healing over the last two years. I feel that the work that organizers do is oftentimes very emotionally heavy, and it is incredibly important to experience, identify, process and heal through these emotions in order to have organizing and activism feel like something that is sustainable. I got very heavily involved with the climate movement at a young age, before I knew the importance of work/life balance or truly understood the depth of the emotions I was experiencing with it. This ultimetly fueled anxiety and led me to feelings of burnout that felt very very hard to be able to come back from. I made the decision to step away from climate organizing for a little bit and focus my energy towards reconnecting with my authentic self and finding balance between work that I love and hobbies that feed my soul. Through therapy and a lot of difficult inner work and reflection I feel I have been able to heal from my burnout and return to climate organizing as a healthier, happier and much more peaceful person and am proud of the life I have been able to create for myself in the present day.

We live in a country rooted in systems of oppression including white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity, abelism and capitalism. For centuries, these systems have shaped our thinking and our infrastructure and have had very violent impacts on many communities of people. To me, climate justice means decontructing these systems and centering the voices of communities most impacted by the climate crisis within climate policy. It means divesting in policys and practices that perpetuate environmental violence and investing in policies that are equitable and inclusive in who they serve. And, it means fostering spaces where people may be authentic in their identities, experiences and pain as it shapes their interactions with the world, and use this authenticity to drive intersectional approaches to climate solutions.