By Reinalyn Ramos
Jenn Sramek, always cared about the environment. When she was 4, her parents acquired a farm from her grandparents and they moved to Pennsylvania with her two brothers, a female cousin, and her aunt.
"My mother was a painter, and my dad was a huge environmentalist/Macgyver renaissance man. Taught me a lot about the world and the farm," Sramek said.
Her parents encouraged her to play outside a lot.
"It was bliss, a total wonderland for a kid," Sramek said. "I can understand why my parents wanted us to grow up out there."
Sramek fondly recalled having the freedom to run around 40 to 60 acres of land, playing in the woods in the dark, with only a dinner bell to answer to for meals. The children had few toys because their parents wanted them to play outside.
"I can still pick up the smells of manure and rusty nails," Sramek said. "I've always loved being outside. I still ride my bike to work. It's rejuvenating and energizing to myself, head clearing. When I'm upset over a broken relationship, I go backpacking."
This love for the environment took her to many unlikely places throughout her life, from working for the Peace Corps in Chad, Africa, to her current job as Living Classroom Program Coordinator for Literacy for Environmental Justice (LEJ,) a youth environmentalist group in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood in San Francisco where she helps young people fight for the environment.
"I had never even heard about LEJ, but as soon as I read about the job, I knew it was for me. It's one of those things where your heart wakes up, your brain wakes up, you think, this is the kind of thing I've wanted to do my whole life," Sramek laughed. "I get to get paid to do this?"
The Living Classroom is a LEJ project to build a greenhouse and classroom at Herons Head Park in Hunters Point. It will be completely self-sufficient because there will be no incoming power and no outgoing sewage because it has a system to process its own sewage.
The entire structure will be powered by solar energy, and will be made with environmentally safe materials such as straw bale. Residents of Bayview Hunters Point can look to the Living Classroom as an example of what they can do to use clean energy, and Sramek described the Living Classroom as a clubhouse for the youth.
"It's the most exciting thing in the world for me. I want it to be a place where the people of the community can celebrate the reclamation of the community, considering the surrounding industries," Sramek said.
Some of the surrounding industries in the Bayview Hunters Point are a PG&E power plant, a sewage plant, and the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard superfund site, which has been surrounded by controversy recently. In her free time, Sramek is Program Coordinator for Youth Promoting Green Energy (YPGE,) a project of LEJ that is trying to shut down the PG&E Power Plant in the Bayview Hunters Point.
"I don't get paid for this, but I would do this for free forever," Sramek said.
During a meeting with two YPGE members, Tony Marks, 17, and Christine Wong, 15, Sramek hardly looks like their boss. Her blond hair is cut below the shoulders and covered with an off-center maroon beanie. She is clad in a baggy, long-sleeve forest green t-shirt, khakis and brown sandals. With her sunburned red cheeks, twinkling blue eyes, and constant grin, Sramek looked like she just came in from skateboarding rather than from her cubicle in the LEJ office.
She asked Marks and Wong how they were coming along on their projects. Because they had the day off from school, they came in to work on a presentation for the Environmental Justice Committee.
"A lot of people know about the power plant but are not empowered to do anything about it," Marks said.
To battle this, YPGE set out to educate the community. Marks created a flier called, "What comes out of the power plant?" which talks about the different chemicals such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur dioxide and their effects on people and the environment. Wong made informational fliers about the power plant written in Chinese and Japanese to reach other people in the community who cannot read English.
"Everybody hates the power plant as a neighbor, to look at, and to smell. But they truly don't know what they can do about it," Sramek said.
YPGE wrote a letter to Governor Gray Davis, which resulted in an accountability session where the Independent System Operator (ISO) board members, a representation of city agencies and community groups, and delegates from the governor's office met with the community a few months ago.
Dana Lanza, 32, one of LEJ's founders, credited the youth for bringing about dramatic change and progress with the power plant.
"The adults have been trying to shut the power plant down since 1995. There was some success but there was no commitment and no attention at the state level," Lanza said. "The ISO cited the youth involvement as what made them change the direction of the agency. The youth made them realize that this issue is a priority."
The ISO is not working with the community to shut down the power plant. YPGE also worked with the policymakers on the energy plan, and insisted that renewable energy be a part of it. Wong said working with YPGE changed her life.
"Before, I didn't really care about other people. Now, I feel I have to speak out for the whole community," Wong said.
Sramek was impressed. "That's really good Christine, I would have never known that about you if you hadn't said that. I learn something from these kids all the time. Literally, every 10-15 minutes I'm like wow, wow," Sramek said.
Because Sramek lived on the farm until she was 10, she didn't have a sense of community because her family was her community. She didn't have a lot of social contact or interact with other cultures, and she was impressed with the sense of responsibility the YPGE youth felt for being a voice for their community.
"I feel like young people have so much hope. They're not jaded, they're creative and I get along with them like they're my peers," Sramek said. One of her challenges is to be able to relate with the youth, but be their boss at the same time.
"A lot of the kids have situations going on at home, and a lot of the kids have only a single parent at home. It constantly reminds me to be a boss. I don't want them to use their time with me to slack off, or to use their situation at home as an excuse. I have to remind them that they are valuable, empowered, and a mouthpiece for their community," Sramek said.
Before she came to LEJ, Sramek worked with the Boys and Girls Club in Los Angeles, and in Chad she worked with students. One of the things she did was help young girls get scholarships for school in Chad, where she said education for girls is not a priority. Sramek visits local high schools and gives presentations on green energy and the Living Classroom. Though Sramek said that the youth of the community have been accepting of her, some adults have not been.
"It's really frustrating working with adults. A lot of them look at me as a white woman. In their eyes, I don't count. They look at me like, 'what does she have to tell us?' "Even kids sometimes have a learned response to me, but it's easy to get past once they see I care and I just want to help. I want to thank them for looking past what their assumptions are and being generous with what they can teach me," Sramek said.
Dana Lanza, who co-founded LEJ, is happy with Sramekís work with LEJ.
"Jenn is one our most hard-working employees. As coordinator of YPGE, it's a challenging role because it's not a traditional program. The youth come face to face with policy makers and Jenn definitely helps them shape their thinking and realize their goals," Lanza said.