Organizers across the country are making a difference this election cycle as part of LCV’s GreenRoots program, mobilizing LCV members to knock on doors, make phone calls, and connect with voters in support of pro-environment candidates up and down the ballot. Kelsey (she/they), an artist and organizer based in Lansing, Michigan, is one of these activists and is leading the charge for a brighter future with compassion, curiosity, and love. 

Kelsey wasn’t always a climate activist. In fact, she wasn’t even always sure that climate change was real. Being raised in a conservative, Christian family that denied the existence of man-made climate change, Kelsey adopted this way of thinking at a young age. “I remember listening to Rush Limbaugh on the way to kindergarten,” she laughs. “I was in denial for a long time.”

It wasn’t until Hurricane Katrina hit when she was a sophomore in high school that Kelsey began to question her denial of climate change.

“It’s going to sound kind of silly, but I was taught that after Noah’s flood, God promised not to flood the Earth again,” they recall. “My thinking was, climate change might be real because God would never flood the Earth again.”

She has since stopped identifying with Christianity, but remains close to many people of the faith. This unique perspective, and an innate curiosity and love for people from all backgrounds and walks of life, has informed Kelsey’s activism throughout her life. She worked with organizations addressing social issues, like housing, for many years. More recently, they became involved in phone banking and organizing for political campaigns on the local and national levels.

With their work, Kelsey aims to educate, find common ground, and build bridges between people who may disagree. “We all breathe air and deserve clean air,” she says. “We may disagree on how to get there, but at a baseline we at least have that in common.” Her perspective of coming from a community that doesn’t believe in climate change has helped her find compassion for people she may disagree with and a unique ability to discuss and garner support for these issues.

“I am able to mentor and talk to people who are brand new to understanding these issues. It’s really not a great idea to shame people into a new belief system, so I give them dignity and try to understand where they first learned certain false beliefs. I’m a bit of a translator, in a way, for people who just don’t know, people who are truly indoctrinated.”

This election cycle, she is working with GreenRoots volunteers to turn out the vote in Michigan for Vice President Kamala Harris for president, Representative Elissa Slotkin for Senate, and Curtis Hertel for Congress. She loves getting to talk to people she never would have had the chance to speak with otherwise and feels she learns so much from and about them. She is determined to fight for her own future and the future of her community, even after Election Day.

“I’m doing this work for myself, but I think by extension I’m also doing it for everyone. We all need clean water. We all need clean air for ourselves, for the younger people as well. A lot of my friends have kids, so I want them to have a future that they can believe in, that they have hope in.”