Each year, participants in the Green Foothills Leadership Program complete a capstone project. The project involves planning an advocacy campaign that benefits open space, farmland, or natural resources and advances race equity. Participants spend several months designing their campaigns individually or in small groups. Some later develop their projects in the real world, while for others the project simply serves as a learning experience that prepares them for future endeavors.

The 2024 Leadership Program participants have already started working on their capstone projects, and they have some great things planned. This year’s projects include campaigns to:

• Increase tree cover and green space in Gilroy
• Reduce litter on Half Moon Bay beaches
• Provide recycling workshops for domestic workers in San Mateo County
• Create a curriculum for farm visits for youth to learn about food production
• Do community advocacy in East Palo Alto’s Ravenswood Business District
• Provide learning experiences for underserved communities in the Bay Area to empower residents to make climate-friendly changes in their daily lives
• Start a community food forest that will offer permaculture climate change mitigation, food justice, and education
• Start a spay and neuter campaign
• Offer an ecopsychology curriculum in local colleges and possibly corporations

We’re looking forward to seeing this year’s participants present their project details later this summer, and to seeing where they take them after that.

The Leadership Program is growing the next generation of environmental leaders in Santa Clara, San Mateo, and San Benito Counties. We depend on your support to keep the program tuition-free. If you’d like to help, please donate here. If you’d like to apply to participate in the program yourself, applications for 2025 will be available this August on our Leadership Program web page. The program is offered in English and Spanish.

Supporters of the Green Foothills Leadership Program include Applied Materials Foundation Community Fund, the County of Santa Clara, North Santa Clara Resource Conservation District (NSCRCD), Sand Hill Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Wildlife Conservation Network’s California Wildlife Program, and Green Foothills donors. Please consider making a donation to support the Leadership Program.