The Center for Urban Ecology and Sustainability held their first guest lecture of the spring semester on Feb. 15 featuring Jia Huang, a Suffolk University Class of 2021 environmental science graduate who spoke about her professional experiences since graduating last spring.
At the lecture, which was held during activities period, Huang spoke about her employment at GrassRoots in Chelsea, Mass. and her professional goals and focus areas.
Huang is currently completing her service year at TerraCorps, working with a site supervisor to gain professional skills, field experience and a network of colleagues through the program. She is also pursuing her master’s degree at the University of Massachusetts Boston in Urban Planning and Community Development.
“TerraCorps operates under the AmeriCorps umbrella, but it focuses on land equity, community and stewardship,” Huang said. “Understanding land equity is also acknowledging the interconnections of social justice, sustainable conservation and ecological resilience.”
Huang works at GreenRoots in Chelsea as a community engagement coordinator. According to Huang, 75% of Chelsea residents identify as an ethnic or racial minority and 24% of residents fall below the federal poverty line. It is the third most intensively overburdened community in the state, Huang said.
“The public health and quality of life of Chelsea residents are compromised by the overabundance of industries in such a small and dense area,” said Huang. “From gasoline, diesel, ethanol and other petroleum products, low-income, and ethnically and racially diverse neighborhoods that are densely populated face extreme risk.”
These environmental and social injustices, according to Huang, have given rise to many movements that fight for equity in Chelsea and its surrounding communities.
“One of these organizations is GreenRoots,” Huang said. “GreenRoots is a community-based organization with a 20+ year record of achieving significant environmental and public health victories.”
According to Huang, GreenRoots’ focus areas include environmental justice, food access, climate resiliency, transit justice and public health.
“In the last 25 years, GreenRoots has restored more than two acres of urban salt marsh. They’ve created new parks and advocated for and oversaw the development of waterfront walkways,” Huang said.
Huang has taken on four capacity building projects as part of her TerraCorps service year. She has focused on community engagement through farms, youth education and gardening lessons, where she cooks with the community and maps environmental justice in Chelsea.
The overarching goal of her “Cooking with the Community” project was to address issues with food access, particularly by increasing access to food for those in need.
“Even pre-pandemic, Chelsea’s food insecurity statistics were alarming,” she said. “Food insecurity and lack of access to fresh, healthy food were clear health challenges in Chelsea, and through my service, I learned about ways to address this with the community.”
Huang focused a lot of her time on a project to create micro-pantries across Boston, where those facing food insecurity could take food as needed and also provide for others when they were able. This was an easy way for residents to get what they needed quickly, as lines for food pantries can be miles long, Huang said.
At the end of the discussion, Huang left students with a few words of advice for pursuing their careers.
“Be intellectually promiscuous,” said Huang. “You’re allowed to have different interests, and this is the time to explore those interests.”
