Committed to justice-centered change
Q:Groundwork’s focus on environmental programming includes restoring the surrounding natural habitat, home upgrades to improve conservation of energy and water, environmental education for kids, and responding to climate change in these neighborhoods. What are some examples of changes that residents have asked for in their neighborhoods/homes to benefit the environment; ways those changes have been executed; and the results of those changes? We have the good fortune of working with talented, resilient youth and families across the watershed who are advocating for investments in their neighborhoods to address serious environmental and climate crises. In fact, we are currently sponsoring a large group of residents, including very talented young people, in a resident empowerment training program to support their community vision. Resident voices have been extremely effective in bringing significant change over the past few years, including in the form of awards from the city, state, and a Bezos Earth Fund award to Groundwork to install droughttolerant landscapes and rain barrels in Webster to save water and avert heat islands; to dechannelize a segment of Chollas Creek to improve water quality and control flooding; and to design and construct a tree-canopied pocket park and trail.
A:Q:
We’re seeing a lot of recordsetting weather events resulting from climate change. Your website mentions the added burden of climate change on historically redlined neighborhoods, which includes those in the Chollas Creek watershed (the San Diego neighborhoods of City Heights, Oak Park, Encanto, Chollas View, Mountain View, Mt. Hope, Barrio Logan, and Southcrest). Redlining is an illegal and discriminatory practice of categorizing Black and other non-White neighborhoods in ways that excluded them from services, like affordable mortgage loans or insurance services. Can you help us understand how and why the effects of climate change are showing up more severely in these neighborhoods?
A:
Communities of concern in our watershed, like across the country, are being disproportionately and dangerously impacted by climate change. As climate change threatens to make our neighborhoods hotter and wetter through rising temperatures and extreme precipitation, not all neighborhoods within a city will be impacted equally. The underinvested communities of the Chollas Creek watershed have experienced historical actions, such as redlining and other discriminatory housing policies, that have resulted in neighborhoods that lack tree-canopy coverage; have high proportions of impermeable surfaces/flooding/heat islands; and poor air and water quality. Freeway construction has disconnected neighborhoods and undermined active transportation and recreational trails and bikeways. While redlining and housing
Leslie Reynolds has a love for the beauty of nature and preserving the environment that stretches back to the days when she and her sister rode their horses through the jungles and beaches of the Panama Canal Zone, while their father was a pilot for the Navy and stationed there on assignment. Later, Reynolds would grow up to work on environmental legislation while working as chief of staff for a California state legislator, and then supporting the environmental work of the faculty and students at San Diego State University where she served as vice president of university relations and development.
“My experience in government, higher education, and as a planning commissioner in my own city provided many tools with which to support the environmental justice vision for Chollas Creek,” she says.
Today, she channels her knowledge and passion into her role as executive director of Groundwork San Diego-Chollas Creek, a nonprofit founded in 2007 to help create a plan for the Chollas Creek watershed through an environmental justice lens to improve water quality, develop alternative energy, create environmental education for students in kindergarten through 12th grade, and to restore the region’s natural resources.
Reynolds, who lives in Coronado, was previously married to the late Nick Reynolds and has four stepchildren, seven grandchildren, and a large extended family. She took some time to talk about her nonprofit work and her commitment to justice-centered change. discrimination were deemed illegal in 1968, nationally, these previously redlined communities continue to be an average of about 5 degrees hotter than their wealthier, greener counterparts, [according to “Understanding Urban Heat Islands and Impacts,” a 2023 report from the San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative at the University of San Diego]. Residents in these communities struggle disproportionately with poverty and are the least likely to be able to afford the economic, health, and social costs of rising temperatures and flooding. Underinvestment, disproportionate harm and patterns of discriminatory practices make it essential that community voice drive government policies that prioritize, design and deliver equitable, multibenefit investments in green infrastructure and related climate mitigation projects. Change will occur only with measurable progress on policies that shift the distribution of re
Q:
Your EarthLab program partners with UC San Diego and the San Diego Unified School District to provide environmental education to the community and children in kindergarten through 12th grades, in a 4-acre, open-air park. Can you walk us through what a day at the EarthLab might look like during this time of year? A:
With our partners at the UC San Diego Center on Global Justice and Millennial Tech Middle School, we have been developing a climate education set of lessons that are hands-on, moving kids from inside the classroom and into the outdoors at the EarthLab. There, they experience nature and develop social and environmental empathy, and also perform experiments through observation and projects. Last week, for example, Groundwork staff and our UC San Diego field instructors worked on a lesson for students to experience, firsthand, how important the permeability of the ground is for their neighborhoods. Through this experiential activity, they gained awareness about the negative impacts of covering the ground with asphalt and concrete. This hands-on climate science sets the stage for knowledgeable, passionate advocacy. We also welcome volunteers and visitors on the first Saturday of each month.
Q:
What are some of your favorite parks/outdoor locations in the Chollas Creek watershed?
A:
There are many beautiful places in our watershed. Perhaps, because I am there so often with amazing kids and their families, I love being at the EarthLab. It is a magical spot with all four of San Diego’s habitat zones, a Chollas Creek tributary, one of the most beautiful native plant gardens in San Diego, and a thriving orchard. When you are there you forget you are in the middle of a city!
Q:
What has your work taught you about yourself?
A:
Working in and around government most of my life to address social and environmental injustice, I have worked to develop the capacity to exercise focus and perseverance despite sometimes slow progress, with the understanding that change can, and will, happen.
Q:
What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
A:
Travel through life with an open heart and “not knowing” mind, paying attention to the task at hand regardless of outcome.
Q:
What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?
A:
I have always been passionate about Mexico, and I published a magazine called “Mexico Business and Life.” It was great fun, but short-lived. I’m hoping I am a better nonprofit manager than I was a publisher.