Extending the Right Message to Youth

With spring cleaning projects in full bloom this May, volunteers from One Roof Foundation, the Kraken and Climate Pledge Arena embarked on a head start while celebrating Green Month as part of a group effort in late April at South Park. The volunteers joined the impressive Duwamish Valley Youth Corps to pick up trash in Duwamish Waterway Park and the local area, plus paint over graffiti and tagging in the neighborhood.

“First and foremost, we want to thank One Roof Foundation for coming to South Park and giving to this beautiful community,” said Carmen Martinez, director of the youth corps. “We are working with local youth, empowering them and showing them there are caring adults throughout the region. That’s an important message to give them.”

“It was truly a great event, I look forward to this event every year,” said Kylie Heinzman, social impact and development coordinator for One Roof, the philanthropic arm of the Kraken and Climate Pledge Arena. “We have community members constantly stopping to just express gratitude and thank us for showing up and being there and being in their community for a working day.”

One Roof Foundation and the Kraken have worked with the South Park community and Duwamish River Community Coalition (DRCC) even before neither the foundation nor hockey team has a name, operating as NHL Seattle striving to improve both water and air quality of South Park and parts of southern Seattle affected by manufacturing and industrial pollution. In fact, one of the three action pillars of One Roof is environmental justice, most especially “elevating the voices of and supporting communities disproportionately impacted by climate change.”

Air Filters, Trash Removal Along with South Park Cleanup

In particular, One Roof Foundation commits to the premise that all children should have access to clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. As part of the initiative, the foundation has partnered with DRCC and the University of Washington School of Public Health to purchase and install HEPA-grade air filters in every classroom and learning space in South Park’s Concord International Elementary School with the full intention to grow the program. What’s more, ORF volunteer outings have led to the removal of more than 600 pounds of trash in various Seattle neighborhoods in the last two years.

“The goal of our cleanup day was to beautify the park and the surrounding area to provide the community with a cleaner park that they can enjoy,” said Abi Lozano, coordinator of social impact projects for the Kraken. “We have done the cleanup at other parks and parts of the neighborhood in past years. This spring, we wanted to do it around Earth Day.”

Lozano said working with the aforementioned youth corps is a highlight for the Kraken, One Roof and Climate Pledge Arena volunteers, while Martinez said a major objective is to create advocates for cleaner water, cleaner air and, of course, environmental justice.

“Along with showing our youth corps that adults care, we are helping them deter littering in the neighborhood, “said Martinez. “And if they know someone who is graffitiing the community, we hope they will help deter that as well. People often wonder why don’t community members just paint out [cover the tagging] themselves ... it’s kind of a battle. We do it in small battles. It’s about education and getting more community members and especially youth to grow up wanting to do the painting out.”

Where There’s “EJ” Leaders, There’s Hope

There are reasons for both, with leaders like Martinez at DRCC and Lozano with the Kraken organization. Carmen Martinez was born and raised in South Park and has worked on social justice issues over the past 15 years to make her community a better place to live, coaching basketball at Chief Sealth (her alma mater) for 10 years before that. That’s a whole career devoted to youth development. Her leadership with the youth corps serves low-income youth of color in the Duwamish Valley area, providing job skills/opportunities and getting them engaged and involved in environmental justice issues and outreach.

Lozano recently celebrated a one-year anniversary with the Kraken and One Roof Foundation. Before moving to Seattle to focus on environmental justice efforts and events for team and foundation, the Stockton (CA)-born Lozano worked for San Diego Wave FC of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) on the team’s community relations staff with “some environmental justice work but not as focused as here.”

With the Kraken, Lozano leads most of the environmental justice projects and feels grateful for the position. She grew up loving baseball, introduced to the sport by her father, an avid fan of the Oakland A’s and the local minor league team in Stockton. One college summer she worked part-time for the MLB San Francisco Giants Community Fund, helping to operate free youth baseball leagues in three states (California and parts of Oregon and Nevada) that included free equipment, weekly lessons over the eight-week program, She specifically worked in “heavy Spanish-speaking communities since I am bilingual.”

“I decided that I not only wanted to work in sports, but to work in the community and sports space, seeing the impact sports can have on youth,” said Lozano, who attended two years of community college, then finished her undergraduate work at Cal State Long Beach before subsequently earning a sports-centric MBA at San Diego State.

I've been very privileged in that I grew up in a very traditional Mexican family,” said Lozano. “But not as traditional in that my parents have always supported me and what I wanted. They've never said, ‘This is what you need to study. This is what you need to go do with your life.’ They actually told me the opposite.”

As a happy result for Lozano and those of us proud to call her a colleague, the director of social impact programs is specializing in “EJ” or environmental justice.

“That we have a pillar [of advocacy] dedicated to EJ was appealing to me,” said Lozano when she noticed the Kraken opening on the digital Teamworks sports job listings. “It affects more people at lower economic levels, low-income communities of color. I was excited to learn not only that One Roof and the Kraken were working with local communities affected by water and air pollution, but that we are doing the work on a daily basis.”