We have much more to do and your continued support is needed now more than ever.
MLK Day 2025 & Climate Change Intervention

Through a generous grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Wildlife Federation’s Earth Tomorrow program partnered with the West Atlanta Water Shed Alliance (WAWA) to provide students with climate change education and intervention strategies for the 2025 MLK Day of Service. Through NWF’s Eco-Schools U.S. program, schools will gain certification for their efforts during the school year.
This pre-MLK Day field trip to WAWA’s Outdoor Activity Center (OAC, a 26-acre urban forest in West End Atlanta) allowed WAWA to educate the students on climate change and ways that preserving old-growth forests and urban forests is an intervention strategy. Forty volunteers including students from Clayton County and Dekalb County high schools and their teachers, community partners, and NWF staff helped with invasive plant species removal, as a way to promote the health and longevity of the forest.
Education as a Climate Change Solution

With hurricane Helene causing catastrophic flooding in North Carolina and wildfires incinerating whole neighborhoods in L.A., there’s no question that climate change is a force of nature to be reckoned with. But what can be done? From the Biltmore estate and humble abodes of mountain folks alike, none found refuge from the forces of nature that bore down on them flooding out generations of families’ hopes and dreams and taking many lives with it.
From the L.A. superstars and beachfront properties to the caretakers and commoners living modestly “across the tracks”, none were spared the 2025 New Year’s wildfire inferno. Now dubbed the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, damages are topping $250 billion in projected repairs. It would be easy to despair and devolve into helplessness, but we know education is one of the best interventions. We can use knowledge to take action to prevent natural disasters and better prepare for the aftermath. It’s safe to say this MLK Day of Service was an educational success for the participating students, teachers, and community who came to support sustaining the health of the OAC Urban Forest in the heart of Atlanta.
“Cutting down forests to create farms or pastures, or for other reasons, causes emissions, since trees, when they are cut, release the carbon they have been storing. Since forests absorb carbon dioxide, destroying them also limits nature’s ability to keep emissions out of the atmosphere.”
—Deforestation/UN.org