Clean Water Action is excited to welcome Shalynn (Shay) Brooks to our Massachusetts team! Shay joins Clean Water Action as the new SouthCoast Energy Efficiency Outreach Specialist, and she will be leading our efforts to ensure that residents in underrepresented neighborhoods have access to energy efficiency upgrades to their homes as part of the Mass Save program. “As a Fall River native, I am excited to help expand access to energy efficiency in my own backyard,” said Shay.
Shay comes to Clean Water with a strong Environmental Justice lens that she developed through her work as a Marion Institute/FoodCorps Service Member in New Bedford, where she worked to address local food insecurity as a classroom gardener and teacher. “Growing up, I’ve always seen myself as a ‘chameleon’ or a ‘floater,’” said Shay. “I have always thrived in spaces that have allowed me to wear many hats.”
Her main projects focused on incorporating culturally relevant school lessons and meals. In 2022, she organized a Black History Month Celebration with New Bedford Food Service and put her family soul food recipe permanently on the lunch menu. She also created a lesson plan on Black history and farming for students and staff which was taught in classrooms across New Bedford.
“I’m excited about Shay’s community organizing background. Food justice is another piece of the climate justice puzzle, and I am grateful that Shay is bringing both her extensive organizing experience and her deep local network to our SouthCoast energy efficiency organizing,” said Maureo Fernández y Mora, Clean Water Action’s MA State Co-Director.
Shay's passion for Environmental Justice is personal. While earning her Associates in Liberal Arts: Behavioral & Social Science, she took a sustainability class that lifted the veil on the environmental injustices she had been experiencing in her own backyard, and she felt a call to action to expand the environmental community to include communities of all backgrounds.
“I like to focus on who is at the table and whose voices are being uplifted. I want to work to create a world where we not only expand resources, but also ensure that those resources are equally accessible across all communities,” she said. “I look forward to creating a just climate future where all communities can reap the financial and environmental benefits of energy efficiency and clean energy technology.”
Learn more about Clean Water’s energy efficiency outreach organizing in MA.
