Friends, neighbors, and partners of LEJ,
We invite you to join in our effort to restore land, health, and community connection in southeast San Francisco. Please consider giving to LEJ this Giving Tuesday and holiday season.
LEJ has had an impactful year, serving over 500 local, underrepresented youth with kayaking, hiking, environmental justice history, and naturalist activities.
Young people told us what they learned: “I enjoyed nature and trying to help it more than I thought,” “There are other things to do instead of staying indoors all day,” and “I actually like exploring and seeking animals such as spiders or birds.”
LEJ’s eight young-adult Eco-Apprentices learned about ecosystem restoration, outdoor leadership, and environmental monitoring during the summer of 2022. LEJ interns led Eco-Adventures for K-12 youth and carried out soils analysis in southeast San Francisco.
One Eco-Apprentice said, “So glad we had an organized and awesome program manager that loves sharing science knowledge and how to get involved in activism & advocacy and so much more! And it was great how the Urban Greening team shared their knowledge on nursery work, restoration, and GIS [mapping]. This was truly an awesome learning and work experience!”
This comes at a crucial time for young people. According to SF Children and Nature, 21% of San Francisco youth are rarely in nature, 1 in 3 low-income, preschool-aged children are overweight or obese, and 31% of SFUSD students have felt sad or lonely for at least 2 weeks. Nationally, children spend on average 7 minutes per day in unstructured outdoor play and seven hours per day on entertainment media.
Thankfully, safe time in nature can be a solution to some of the issues children experience with mental health. This study demonstrates that just 5 minutes in nature will lead to more positive emotions. And according to this study, the likelihood of reporting good health or high well-being became significantly greater with 2 hours of time outside each week.
The youth that we encounter at LEJ experience safe engagement with the natural environment, positive leadership opportunities, and activities that build trust and resilience. They learn to observe nature, perform habitat restoration, and they develop an awareness of the effects of climate change in their community. Our holistic approach provides a way to connect a new generation of youth to tomorrow’s leaders and decision makers.
As we reopen the Native Plant Nursery and Community Garden, we’re working to engage inter-generational groups with health, wellness, and connection to land. New community garden boxes and the community gathering space will support food sovereignty for participating neighbors.
Our Native Plant Nursery grew over 60,000 plants this year for ecological restoration efforts at Candlestick’s Sunrise Point, Heron’s Head Park, Yosemite Slough, and Yerba Buena Island. With the near-complete expansion of our nursery, we’ll be poised to double our plant production in the coming years.
We continue our advocacy work to bring access to open space and environmental health and safety to Bayview residents. We do this through close partnerships with City and State agencies, Bayview community groups, SFUSD schools, and so many more!
We invite you – neighbors, community partners, financial partners, volunteers, LEJ alumni, and all others – to join us in this effort to bring health and healing to Bayview. Your donation and your partnership make this work possible.
About environmental justice, some of our youth participants learned: “Whatever happens to the environment affects us,” “Not every area in the city has an equal amount of resources,” and, “We can stop climate change if we all work together. Nature is very important in our world and we have to protect it.”
Thank you for being a part of our movement at Literacy for Environmental Justice. Happy Holidays to you!