Stronger Together: Peer Support in Building Green Career Pathways
In the CEE-Change, Together blog series, NAAEE shares narratives from the CEE-Change Fellows as they implement their community action projects and work to strengthen environmental education and civic engagement capabilities, all supporting the mission of cleaner air, land, and water. Join us on their journey! The Civics and Environmental Education (CEE) Change Fellowship is NAAEE’s initiative to support leadership and innovation in civics and environmental education in North America and beyond.
The 2025 U.S.-based CEE-Change Fellowship Program is supported by generous funding from ee360+, the Cedar Tree Foundation, the Sam and Mary Lawrence Foundation, and the Weeden Foundation. The 2025 International CEE-Change Fellowship Program is a partnership between NAAEE and the Global Environmental Education Partnership (GEEP).
When I first applied to be part of the NAAEE CEE-Change Fellowship, I had the seed of an idea for a green career program that explores jobs in the circular economy, an economic sector that seeks to reduce waste by designing systems that reuse and repair rather than throw materials away. As an environmental educator, I have worked for various organizations over the course of my nearly 20 year career, but never have I had the opportunity to take an idea and nourish it within a community of fellow practitioners. Being part of the CEE-Change cohort has demonstrated to me the value of peer support in bringing new program elements to fruition.
In late August 2025, the CEE-Change Fellowship program hosted a five-day Leadership Institute that granted me the privilege to expand my thinking among a group of supportive colleagues, each cultivating their own visions of how to interweave civic engagement and environmental education. Spending a week together in West Virginia, walking through wooded trails to find meeting rooms jam-packed with presentations along with quieter moments to catch conversations between breaks, served as a launchpad to build new relationships and strengthen my project.
As we each went back to our corner of the world, I stayed connected with the group through monthly online meetings that were thoughtfully facilitated by NAAEE staff to celebrate bright spots, work through pain points, and build our collective skills in critically important areas, like fundraising and storytelling, to transform our ideas into actions. Through these remote sessions, I gleaned ideas and tools as I continued to lay the groundwork of a new green career program.
So often as an environmental educator my conversations about work or big ideas stop short of becoming real due to real constraints of time and funding. What the CEE-Change Fellowship has done has shifted the narrative and fostered a collaborative network. Together we are working toward a common goal, to blend civic engagement with environmental education. For me, this looks like blending economic, environmental, and societal benefits for young people on the precipice of starting their lives after high school.
Fellows gather at the National Conservation Training Center to learn about the jam-packed week of activities to support their environmental and civic education projects. Photo credit: NAAEE
Through the support of a mini-grant made available to Fellows, my team led a workshop with youth at a community center in Queens, New York, exploring how circular business practices can support economic opportunity and environmental health. With the feedback provided by young people, the seed began to germinate into a summer internship exploring the circular economy and related career paths in New York City.
Youth discuss plastic waste and the circular economy at a workshop in Queens, New York. Photo credit: Sanitation Foundation
Today as I look back at my time at the Institute, the woods of West Virginia are more than just a place to daydream while dipping my feet in the cool waters of the Potomac River. In actuality, it lead to the realization of Sanitation Foundation's six-week workshop where youth were paid to explore jobs in the circular economy by meeting field experts, visiting job sites, and completing independent research projects to help make career pathways in this sector more visible. All of this was bolstered by a local grant maker, The Pinkerton Foundation, who made this opportunity possible.
Fran presents her green career exposure program in a breakout session. Photo credit: NAAEE
I can say for certain that this would not have happened without the space, community, and support this Fellowship granted me. Because NAAEE saw potential in this idea, because of the connection and feedback from my peers, and because I knew this cohort of Fellows was working together toward a common goal, I was able to keep this idea at the forefront despite competing priorities that come with any job. I will continue to dream and push to grow this program into an annual offering for young people, so they can see a world where they can find meaning and purpose through green jobs that support themselves and their communities. And when I stumble, I know I can reach out to the CEE-Fellows to help me work through it.