Global Shapers Community – Phoenix Hub is a chapter of a national network supporting youth leaders to offer local solutions to global challenges. Founded in 2013, the hub has worked on environmental and social justice issues as wide-ranging as extreme heat, food waste, and medical debt. The team, which works across the city metro area, aims to advance solutions that offer “stacked benefits”, says Adam Shipley, the organization’s Community Champion for the US West, giving the example of teams planting fruit trees in low-income areas of Phoenix that are food deserts, in order to also boost shade and biodiversity. The chapter often focuses on the immediate needs of those most exposed to Phoenix’s extreme heat, like the city’s homeless population, for whom it sourced hundreds of pairs of shoes to help unhoused people avoid blistering their feet on the pavements. From mitigating against immediate harm to expanding green spaces to offer shade for decades to come, the organization takes a holistic view of environmental justice.
Phoenix Shapers organizing a Sole Relief shoe donation day. Image: courtesy of organization.
The Phoenix hub is entirely run by volunteers, with its leaders changing as its members do. Made up of 35 volunteers aged 18 to 30, the ranks of the organization, which primarily works in Latino and low-income areas, are diverse and constantly in flux. The hub decides which issues to focus on by considering the issues members care deeply about alongside the greatest needs of the local community, Shipley explains, while members benefit from developing youth leadership and community organizing skills. The chapter has an upcoming grant-supported project that will see it partner with local businesses to reduce food waste by donating to those in need. Through its mission to meet the needs of both the planet and local communities, the Phoenix organization is building generations of local changemakers.