EcoRise
EcoRise mobilizes a new generation of leaders to design healthy, just, and thriving communities for all.
Company: EcoRise
Location: Austin, TX
Impact: Elaina’s Sustainability Fund Grant
Their need:
At the crossroads of enormous environmental and social inequities, EcoRise recognizes an unprecedented opportunity to transform education. EcoRise plays a crucial role in supporting students in schools disproportionately impacted by environmental stressors. Working at the intersection of sustainability education, climate resilience, and environmental justice, EcoRise elevates youth voices and advances student-led solutions to real-world challenges.
EcoRise helps students develop environmental literacy and 21st-century skills, adopt sustainable living practices, and become community leaders and creative changemakers. The projects they lead, such as schoolwide water-conservation efforts, air purification installations, and outdoor classrooms, make schools and communities more sustainable.
Our gift:
Elaina’s Sustainability Fund Grant funded green projects involving 335 students in low-income and historically marginalized communities who are hardest hit by the impacts of climate change. These student-led projects brought together students and community members to conserve energy and water, improve air quality, reduce carbon emissions, produce healthy food, convert public spaces into eco-friendly spaces, and divert waste from local landfills. Funding students’ green projects created memorable, real-world learning experiences that inspired students to realize and use their agency to act as sustainability leaders and creative changemakers in their communities.
With support from Elaina’s Sustainability Fund, EcoRise:
1. Supported 8 student-led innovations directly led by 335 students in 6 underfunded regions.
2. Impacted at least 3,586 students as well as their school communities.
3. Fostered a stewardship mindset in participating students as they gain a deeper perspective of environmental issues in their community.
4. Helped students develop valuable 21st-century skills, including problem-solving and critical thinking, as they evaluate campus conditions and innovate sustainable solutions.