From Darel Scott’s desire to make both nature and the environmental movement more inclusive, Earth in Color was born. Earth in Color started as an art festival on a farm to celebrate people of color and their cultural connections to the natural world. That day under the spring sun—filled with art, food, music, and connection—highlighted the importance of people of color being able to see themselves through this lens of health and sustainability.

Like many of us, Miracle Adesina watched the COVID-19 pandemic spread through the lens of social media. As a healthcare professional, what he saw coming through his social feeds gave him great cause for concern. Part of the problem, Miracle felt, was that critical health messages were not available in many of the 70+ indigenous languages throughout Africa. The Pollination Project supported Miracle’s translation project with a seed grant.

Lucas Akol’s son, who has sickle cell disease, inspired him to become a community educator and support for other families. During COVID-19, Lucas is providing these at-risk children and families with food and hygiene supplies to stay safe.

In some ways, the story of the Minnesota Black Community Project is a tale of two men named Walter Scott. Only one of them has had their story told.

For Eric Miller, the path to a young person’s potential runs through the yard of a neighbor in need. “My mother’s name was Deloris Miller. She was a special ed teacher who always said every young person had the capacity to learn, but we all learn through different...

Jennifer Rae Myers learned the power of words from her father, Raymond Banks. A writer himself, Raymond raised Jennifer to value the art of communication. He took her to the library after school, encouraged her to read, and showed her through example how to advocate for historically disadvantaged people through language. In third grade, her essay on Harriet Tubman won a writing contest on American heroes, a moment she still recalls as the point in which she realized the gift her father’s encouragement had offered her.

The force that moves me is compassion,” said Gelli, a TPP changemaker whose sanctuary—which, in part, rescues domestic animals who were abandoned because their owners feared they could carry the coronavirus–was awarded funding by TPP’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund. “I cannot see any living thing suffering. I cannot. I’m not able to pass by if I see someone or an animal suffering.

She only had enough food left to feed her family for one week. This 35-year-old widowed woman, let’s call her Amara, and her family live in Dharavi, India. You may know Dharavi—it was the slum featured in the movie “Slumdog Millionaire.” This woman lost her husband due to alcoholism a few years back, and since then she has had full responsibility for the caregiving and support of her three children.

Ghosh knew he had the opportunity to use his specialized knowledge to help the communities he had worked with for so long. His ingenious plan? Using the WHO’s gold standard recipe, he created his own hand sanitizer by mobilizing the youth in the Kolkata slums to help him.

Cavanaugh Bell has spent the last two years giving back to his community of Gaithersburg, Maryland, a significant amount of time for anyone, but even more so when you consider his age–which is 7. You read that right. Bell first began leading a host of care pack initiatives to help the homeless in his community when he was just 5 years old.

But then, once again, the unthinkable happened—a pandemic swept through the nation, with California being one of the hardest hit states. All of a sudden, Lowrey was thrust again into emergency mode. “[Our family, friends, and neighbors] have survived the nightmare of the fire and had just gotten back to work. They were finally feeling hopeful again … and then COVID-19 happened. We are now hit with a second disaster before we have recovered from the first.”