Highlights from the 2025 Baytown Community Organizing Summit
On October 18th, we were excited to host the 2025 Baytown Organizing Summit alongside our partners. We were joined by local community members, organizers, advocates, experts, and students who shared campaigns and organizing stories and networked through panels and workshops.
Over 40 local leaders gathered at the Baytown Community Center, just blocks away from one of the largest petrochemical facilities in the state. The summit included community leaders who have mounted campaigns to fight petrochemical pollution, toxic chemical recycling, and more.
Reverend Lennox Yearwood Jr., President of Hip Hop Caucus, served as our keynote speaker. He highlighted the importance of organizing led by communities most impacted by environmental threats within the climate movement.
We keep pushing on, we believe that organized people beats organized money…despite tremendous odds, we’ve seen when we have been in positions to succeed we win.
The first program was a panel session and discussion facilitated by Luke Metzger, Director of Environment Texas. Dominic Chacon, Houston Regional Coordinator for Texas Campaign for the Environment, Jordan Macha, Gulf Coast Campaign Director for Beyond Petrochemicals, and Kristen Schlemmer, Senior Legal Director at Bayou City Waterkeeper served as panelists for the panel. The panelist discussed the impacts of petrochemicals and shared their experiences with advocacy and organizing efforts around the proliferation of petrochemical facilities in Texas.
We also ran an interactive campaign planning workshop helping community members put together a winning campaign plan. We began running through principles behind campaign planning, and developing plans to implement in their communities. We went over essential steps including identifying targets for change, making plans to influence these targets, coalition-building, and sharing resources to boost the power of our campaigns. Attendees drafted initial campaign plans on issues such as challenging tax abatements for petrochemical facilities and got feedback from our trainers, Luke Metzger, Director of Environment Texas, and Hanna Mitchell, Texas Gulf Coast Policy Advocate at Earthworks.
(left), co-facilitating the How to Run a Winning Campaign Workshop. Photo Credit: JaRel Clay.
Genesis Granados, Environmental Justice Programs Senior Manager at Air Alliance Houston and Taurjhai Purdie, Think 100% Campaigns Manager at Hip Hop Caucus, ran a workshop that dove into the air permit opposition process to learn how to mobilize against petrochemical air pollution. They explored principles of language justice, strategies for youth engagement, and helped provide practical tools to initiate and strengthen air permit opposition in communities.
We ended off the day with an interactive social media and communications workshop led by Brenda Franco, Social Media Manager for Air Alliance Houston. Attendees learned how to use digital tools and effective messaging to create compelling social media content for their campaigns. They also had the opportunity to create short pieces of video content and receive feedback from trainers.
We were excited to honor four outstanding community groups and organizers with awards to celebrate the incredible work they have done to fight for clean and healthy environments. I’ve listed the awardees below:
Student Activist Award: Yaridka Turrubiartes
Presented in recognition for her outstanding work engaging students and elected officials to take action to save renewable energy in Texas and to stop drilling in the Arctic. Yari has been an amazing asset to several environmental campaigns over the past year, including the Save Texas Renewables campaign and the Arctic Defense Campaign. With Save Texas Renewables, she led two grassroots events and supported over 15 outreach initiatives, and she presented the campaign interests to Texas representatives. As part of the Arctic Defense Campaign, she has worked as the Coalitions Outreach Coordinator, working to obtain sign ons to a coalition letter to protect the Arctic from harmful drilling operations. Her passion for the environment is truly inspiring, and she is an inspiration to other students at the University of Houston who are interested in getting involved with environmental activism.
Outstanding Activist Award: Donna Thomas
Presented in recognition for her outstanding work building a successful community group and movement in Fort Bend County to stop a toxic concrete-crushing facility to protect her community’s health and environment. She has been a leader in her community, building up the group Fort Bend County Environment Group to educate and engage fellow neighbors and has built a strong coalition to point out the dangers and health impacts of this facility that if built would crush up to 200 tons of concrete per year, for up to 2,640 hours per year. She and the Fort Bend County Environment Group successfully fought off 2 attempts to permit this concrete plant over the past year.
Most Outstanding Group Award: Texas Health and Environment Alliance
Presented in recognition of their outstanding organizing work to get the EPA to approve a clean up plan for the San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund Site, one of the nation’s most toxic sites. The EPA’s ruling imposes over 40 additional conditions on the companies responsible for the toxic waste, International Paper Company and Waste Management subsidiary McGinnes Industrial Maintenance Corporation. These conditions are designed to ensure a thorough and effective cleanup of the site, which has been a source of dioxin and other hazardous materials for decades.
Community Spirit Award: Terri Blackwood
Presented in recognition for her outstanding work in engaging her local community for clean air and protecting the health of community members in Baytown, Texas.
There was so much energy throughout the summit. Seeing community organizers, students, advocates and experts sharing their stories, their campaigns; networking and learning from each other was inspiring.
I have no doubt that coming out of the summit, these organizers will be bringing that energy to their own work, whether that be on their campus or in their neighborhood to make real change building healthier and greener communities this year.
If you are interested in finding out how you can support any of these groups, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
