Anthony Grassroots Prize

Tucked between the mountains and farmlands at the southern end of California’s Central Valley sits the unincorporated town of Lamont. In the United States, unincorporated areas do not have a municipal government. This means that residents often face greater challenges to receiving funding and resources for public improvements because they quite literally cannot call City Hall for help. Add in a legacy of discrimination and active disinvestment in farmworker communities like Lamont and the result is a community facing the brunt of environmental impacts like poor air quality, pesticide exposure, and flooding.

Anthony Prize winner, Comité Progreso de Lamont (CPL) is returning power to Lamont, campaigning in place of local government for community improvement projects. The volunteer-led group’s mission is to achieve a healthy environment and to improve the quality of life for Lamont residents by building a collective community voice to advocate for change. Since its inception, CPL has fought for and won numerous community improvement projects and protections for residents. In total, the group has helped secure over $125 million in funding to improve infrastructure, water, and air quality in Lamont. They’ve engaged in advocacy on oil and gas drilling regulations, affordable housing, and sidewalk and street repairs.

In 2021, Theresa launched the Alliance for Felix Cove to restore and represent the history, culture, and ecological wisdom of the Coast Miwok at their ancestral homeland in Point Reyes National Seashore. The organization takes its name from the ancestral homesite of the last Tomalko family to live on the western shores of Tomales Bay. Theresa’s immediate goal is to establish the cove as a historical district at Point Reyes, with a living history center and garden for Indigenous history and traditional ecological knowledge. But she sees her work as part of a much broader movement. “All across the Americas, Native peoples are leading the shift toward re-affirming ancestral relationships with public lands and honoring the sacred.” Theresa explains.

Theresa hopes her work at Point Reyes will inspire other Native Peoples to do the same at public lands in California and across the country. “The land is calling us, and I’m trying to bring Native people, relatives, children, and grandchildren back to this place to heal,” Theresa explains. “I am truly honored to be selected for this award dedicated to protecting and restoring our earth, our mother and all our relatives in nature. To be in the company of past recipients fortifies our work to honor our beloved ancestors and heal the separation from our family’s home. We do this work so that future generations will know the resilient legacy of past generations and continue the Indigenous cultural and ecological practices of Tamalko people, people of Tamal-liwa (Tomales Bay).”

Since launching Battle Creek Alliance nearly 15 years ago, Marily has held the State of California, Sierra Pacific Industries, and other large timber companies accountable to environmental laws which protect people and planet. Her work to protect forests, watersheds, and wildlife not only supports local ecosystems, but also aims to address fire prevention and build climate resilience. With painstaking care and extreme scientific rigor, Marily has developed and led a citizen science initiative which has collected over 14,000 water and habitat quality samples to document the damage of industrial clearcut logging throughout the Battle Creek Watershed. These efforts have led her to Superior Court, where this Earth Day, she will formally open the arguments for a sweeping public challenge of the State of California’s pattern and practice of routinely ignoring the requirements of CEQA and the Forest Practice Act and the cumulative impacts of this destructive clearcut logging on the watershed.

Her outreach and education to broaden community knowledge, promote resource conservation, and protect the Battle Creek Watershed led her to produce Clearcut Nation, a feature-length film.

The Winnemem Wintu tribe is indigenous to Northern California and has been formally recognized by the California Native American Heritage Commission, an agency of the State of California with responsibility for preserving and protecting Native American sites and cultural resources in California. We once numbered approximately 14,000; by 1910, after several decades of conflict with white settlers, that number had plummeted to 400. Today the tribe’s population is approximately 150.

In our language Winnemem Wintu translates to Middle Water People as the McCloud River is bounded by the Upper Sacramento to the West and the Pit River to the East. We were born from water, we are of the water, and we fight to protect it.

Since assuming leadership in 2000, Chief Sisk has focused on uplifting the cultural and religious traditions of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, such as the revitalization of the Winnemem’s H’up Chonas (War Dance) and BaLas Chonas (Puberty Ceremony). In tandem, she advocates tirelessly for salmon restoration, the undamming of watersheds, and the basic human right to clean water. Chief Sisk is currently leading the Tribe’s resistance against the proposal to raise the Shasta Dam, and is an integral voice in the efforts to bring salmon home to the tribe’s sacred watersheds above the dam.

Chris Hwang is a tireless advocate for biking and walking. As the chair of Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, she has played a catalytic role in the development of this highly effective, volunteer-led organization that strives to improve neighborhood quality of life by making biking and walking easy, safe, and enjoyable for all Oakland residents. “Walk Oakland Bike Oakland has benefited from the critical support of the Rose Foundation, as have many grassroots advocacy groups. It is a tremendous honor to receive the Anthony Prize. This award is a reflection of the passion and desire for change of WOBO supporters and neighborhood leaders, upon whose trust and ideas I rely on to advocate for vibrant, livable, and sustainable communities. I thank the Foundation for recognizing our collective dreams,” said Chris.

The 2018 Anthony Grassroots Prize recognizes Chris Hwang’s enthusiastic leadership in helping Oakland become a modern, healthy, and livable city. “Look at the human and economic costs of gasoline,” explains Juliette Anthony, a lifelong environmental activist and Chair of the Anthony Prize Selection Committee, “Chris is leading us to a better future. We need more people like her!” Rose Foundation Executive Director Tim Little adds, “Throughout California, we suffer from poor air quality and dangerous streets due to heavy automobile traffic. We salute Chris’ work to place Oakland at the forefront of an active transportation revolution which benefits everyone who walks, bikes, or breathes.”

Orleans activist Regina Chichizola is a dedicated volunteer advocate for wild salmon and environmental justice for Tribal communities. She focuses her passion towards protecting California’s threatened aquatic ecosystems, and the people who depend on them for life’s sustenance, especially the Tribes and commercial salmon fishermen of the Klamath-Trinity basin. She was an early leader in building the movement to remove four old and outdated dams from the Klamath River, which led to a historic water settlement between the dam operators, state and federal government, and some tribal nations around the cooperative removal of the dams.

Porterville-based WildPlaces serves disadvantaged communities at the intersection of California’s great Central Valley and majestic Southern Sierra. The organization’s small, diverse team of staff and volunteers draws from their own deep spiritual connections to our land, water, and air to help thousands of students and community members protect the region’s precious resources.