Interview with Council’s New Community Organizer, Echo Alford

Philadelphia, PA (February 4, 2022)

1. Where are you from and what’s your background? 

I am an artist, parent, and community organizer from Delaware County, PA. 

2. When did you start on staff? 

I joined the Clean Air Council team at the beginning of January. 

3. What’s your expertise you bring to the Council? How do you use it to fight for a cleaner environment? 

My passion and expertise lies in bringing people from my community together and working with community members to take an active interest and role in the issues that affect us all. I’m using this skill to help organize the people in my community to use our collective voice and power to advocate for better health and safety practices from the companies that contribute to pollution in our community. 

4. What keeps you motivated and invested in environmental activism  (esp. when community battles are long-term, intensive, and emotionally draining)? 

Necessity and hope. Living in an environmental justice community completely surrounded by polluting infrastructure, I can see the very real and immediate harm to people’s health and safety from pollution every day. But I also see people working together to fight for a better life, and not giving up— not just in my community, but around the world. The ingenuity, skills, optimism, and power that I see people bring to this cause is an endless spring of inspiration for me. 

5. What’s the biggest challenge to winning victories for the environment?

Working within a system that so often values profits over human lives. 

6. What’s the most promising change(s) you’ve seen in the environmental movement recently? 

It seems the struggle for climate justice has really become more of a multigenerational fight. Seeing people of all ages engage in the environmental movement gives me hope that it’s becoming a more central issue to everyone.