Antoinette Gomez, Sustainable South Bronx

Antoinette Gomez is an environmental consultant working with Sustainable South Bronx, a grassroots environmental justice organization. She is also a fellow in the Environmental Leadership Program.

Yesterday, I was in a meeting until 6:30 p.m., only to get home and chat with a colleagues for an hour about the youth program of the National Society for Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Sciences (MANRRS). Then I stayed up until 1 a.m. reviewing the materials for the first and second month of the Sustainable South Bronx training project. It was a long night!

Today is a light day considering how busy this week has been for me. There's only one meeting on the agenda, but there is a lot of work still to do on the curricula for the Sustainable South Bronx program. During the first two months, stream-bank corridor information, stream-bank stabilization, and plant/forestry identification will be key components of the curricula. By the third month (June), project participants will begin working three days in the field and two days in the classroom on computer skills, life skills, and testing for their core competencies.

MANRRS work has continued today as well, with emailing the committee members regarding a conference call for next week, sending the executive office the schedule and budget for the youth programs, and following up with Clarence Johnson of Fort Valley State University on speakers.

This afternoon, I will need to gear my energy toward my Environmental Leadership Program project. My project includes a newsletter and a digital documentary from the Second People of Color Environmental Summit. The photos from the summit are being sorted so I can use the best of them. In addition, I must call Zenaida Mendez, who was the organizer of the summit, to request a list of addresses of those who attended. My objective is to send everyone who went to the summit a request for submissions to the newsletter. In addition, I am scheduled to interview a young woman from the South Bronx who was active with youth organizing for the summit.

like a travel nightmare; I'm in town for eight to 10 days of the month at most. Hence, I will need to work really hard in March to stay ahead of the game and begin transitioning from the ecological-restoration project with Sustainable South Bronx to the El Puente air-monitoring project. Still, I'm planning to leave the office by 6 p.m. for my special Valentine's date.