365 days in Community: Lessons from My First Year as GPE’s Community Manager📔

September 2025

Dear Diary, 

I can’t believe it’s been a full orbit around the sun since I stepped into the role of Community Manager at GPE. Time has truly flown by, but that’s what they say happens when you’re doing work you love.

Just a year ago, I graduated cum laude from Vanderbilt University, where I worked to create more pathways for Black students, faculty, and staff to engage in environmental justice conversations and connect with the outdoors. Yes, Black people climb, kayak, horseback ride, and fish too. We belong in those spaces and have every right to foster Black joy and community in the outdoors.

After pushing full steam ahead right through the finish line at graduation, I finally took a breath. And that’s when reality hit. I had moved back home to Metro Atlanta with no job lined up. Nada. Nothing. And the job market was not looking great.

Then out of nowhere, I came across an Instagram post that felt like divine timing. Girl Plus Environment was hiring a Community Manager! The position aligned perfectly with my passions and interests, blending Black feminist thought, public health, and environmental justice with the community organizing I’ve always done to help build healthier and more thriving Black and Brown communities.

One year in, and there’s so much to celebrate. Here are my top 3 lessons that I’ve learned along the way.✨

Lesson #1: Environmental justice doesn't have to be heavy or inaccessible. Environmentalism has often been framed as a white issue or treated as a luxury BIPOC communities can’t afford. But in reality, environmental justice is deeply intertwined with the issues and narratives of BIPOC communities. As such, it is critical to incorporate and uplift diverse lived experiences, voices, and cultures in this work, especially those of Black and Brown women, whose stories have often been overlooked or forgotten throughout history.

One of the biggest things that drew me to GPE is the intentional way we shape content, training, and information to truly resonate with our audience and inspire them to take action. From our Spill Da Tea monthly blogs (written by moi and community members) to our Instagram climate memes, we know that Black and Brown women have a special knack for telling our stories in creative and often hilarious ways. In this role, I’m constantly challenged to make the environmental justice work we do and the way we engage with our members feel real and authentic to our experiences.

I also deeply appreciate when we partner with organizations that share this culturally grounded approach. For example, my first speaking engagement representing GPE was at BLKHLTH Link Up, a public health block party! It was a powerful model of what community outreach and engagement can look like when it’s done right. The event blended teach-ins, community vendors, and visioning activities that inspired folks to imagine a greener, more sustainable Atlanta. Plus, arts & crafts, VR, games, a photobooth, free food, and live DJ to keep the energy high and community connected.

Not only was it a great opportunity to strengthen my public speaking skills and introduce a diverse audience to the basics of environmental justice, but it also reinforced how this work can celebrate community culture while driving action and wellbeing.

Lesson #2: Dreaming and building community are powerful tools for the fight against systemic oppression. When I attended Overheated back in October, I was reminded that the goal of systemic oppression is to make you lose hope. Building on the previous lesson, when environmental justice is accessible and not heavy to engage with, it becomes easier to be hopeful and to dream. That’s why activists, at their core, are visionaries. They dare to imagine a better future, and they do so in community with others. 

From DC to LA to ATL, I’ve had the honor of connecting with our incredible GPE community to do just that: co-create restorative and joy-filled spaces where Black and Brown women can lead in environmental justice. 

One program that I hold especially close to my heart is our Post-Climate Disaster Healing Circles. With five in-person events and over 100+ attendees, we created radical hubs for rest and resilience,  offering breathwork, belly dancing, sound baths, massages, and trauma-informed healing circles. Our events were powerful spaces for Black and Brown women to process the emotional toll of climate disasters and explore ways to support one another in community.

In each small group session I facilitated, I brought in reflection questions inspired by books that push me to dream: Parable of the Sower, Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Animals, and Octavia’s Brood. I invited attendees to ask themselves:

What should I be dreaming more boldly about?

What kind of superpower would I love to have to support my community?

What blessings do I want to protect?

In this current climate—political, environmental, and existential—it can often feel like everything is falling apart. But our Black matriarchs remind us: community is the answer and joy is a form of resistance.

And I got to witness that in real time through these healing circles as we tapped into our wildest visions for liberation, built networks of care, and equipped one another with the strategies and resources to begin again.

Lesson #3: Taking action and coalition building is how we move from conversation to real change! Okay, maybe you weren’t fully convinced by Lesson #2. Maybe dreaming sounds a little too idealistic. And after wrapping our Summer Listening Tour, we hear you loud and clear: y’all want to know, what action steps can we take to stand up for our communities?

First, we believe in the power of education and weaving clear calls to action into everything we do. We also know that real change happens when we join forces with other like-minded organizations to build collective power. And we’ve been doing just that.

Two examples include hosting teach-ins: one in collaboration with Spelman College’s Social Justice Program, and another with GirlTrek for our Hot Girl Climate Walk.

As Black feminist Audre Lorde once said, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”  These gatherings explored how the fight for environmental justice is intersectional and connected to the movements for health equity, racial justice, economic justice, and the broader legacy of Black history and resistance.

We’re also excited to expand avenues for our members to take action with the launch of our Take Action webpage and Slack channel. So tap in! Submit petitions, call your representatives, and educate your family & friends too. 

A dear friend and fellow GPE girly recently gifted me Revolutionary Mothering, calling it “another source of fuel in the jetpack of love-based action you continue to push throughout your world.” That line hit deep. It’s exactly how I feel about this work. Fueled by love + community, I’m so excited to keep showing up, pouring into others, and making change happen, the GPE way. 

With gratitude, 

Danait 

P.S. If you’re a fan of GPE and our work, you can support us by nominating us for the Climate Ride Grant!