“Jane Fonda is headed back to the streets of D.C. this Friday, December 2nd for her first in-person Fire Drill Fridays’ rally in nearly three years!”

photo by Victoria Pickering

From a press release:

“WHAT: Join Jane Fonda in Washington, D.C. for Fire Drill Fridays’ first in-person rally in almost three years! This Friday, activists, community advocates, environmentalists, and celebrities will come together in the Capitol to call attention to the growing climate crisis and to demand that Congress reject Senator Joe Manchin’s “Dirty Deal” and that President Joe Biden declare a climate emergency.

Jane will be accompanied by a number of speakers, including activists Jerome Foster, the youngest member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, Roishetta Ozane, Organizing Director of Southwest Louisiana/Southeast TX for Healthy Gulf, and Maria Lopez-Nunez, Deputy Director of Ironbound Community Corporation (ICC), as well as Senator Jeff Merkely (D-OR) and Representative Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ). 

Since going virtual in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Fire Drill Fridays has reached more than 11 million viewers. Washington, D.C. is the first of several cities Fire Drill Fridays plans to visit in the coming year. In 2023, it will host rallies in the Gulf Coast and California, areas of the United States already seeing the visceral changes brought on by the climate crisis – and whose communities are among the most impacted. 

Join Jane in Washington this Friday! 

WHEN: 11am EDT on Friday, December 2, 2022

WHERE: Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. OR online at https://firedrillfridays.org/ 

WHO:

Jane Fonda, Actor and Activist 

Jerome Foster, Activist and Member of White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council

Raúl Grijalva, United States Congressman for Arizona’s Third District (D)

Maria Lopez-Nunez, Deputy Director of Ironbound Community Corporation (ICC)

Jeff Merkely, United States Senator for Oregon (D)

Roishetta Ozane, Organizing Director of Southwest Louisiana/Southeast TX for Healthy Gulf

Celebrity guests to be announced! 

About the guests:

Jerome Foster II is a 20-year-old White House Climate Advisor, environmental justice activist, and emerging technology developer. He advises on President Biden’s White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council as the youngest ever White House Advisor in history. He served as intern for the late Honorable John Lewis at 16-years old and served as Board Member for the DC State Board of Education at 15. He is Co-Founder at Waic Up which is an international communication to community impact charity which is an expansion of OneMillionOfUs, which mobilized 1 million young people to vote in the 2020 Elections.

Raúl Grijalva began his career in public service as a community organizer in Tucson. Four decades later, he continues to be an advocate for those in need and underrepresented voices. He has served as US House Representative for Arizona’s Seventh Congressional District for twenty years, and in 2018, became Chair of the House Natural Resources Committee. He also serves on the Committee on Education and the Workforce and is the Chairman Emeritus of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, as well as a long-standing member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He authored a letter championing the opposition to Manchin’s permitting reform deal, and introduced the landmark Environmental Justice for All Act to fund environmental justice priorities. 

Maria Lopez-Nunez (she/her) grew up in Bushwick and remembers being displaced multiple times by racism and violence, which sparked her commitment to fight extractive industries and end sacrifice zones once and for all. The Ironbound district of Newark, New Jersey where she resides, is predominantly Black and Latinx, and is one of the most toxic neighborhoods in the country. In her role as Deputy Director of Advocacy and Organizing of Ironbound Community Corporation (ICC); she challenges the current political system, and holds power brokers and polluters accountable while fighting for environmental, housing, immigrant, and racial justice. She currently serves on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, on the board for Climate Justice Alliance, and is the Co-Chair of the Grassroots Caucus for Building Equity and Alignment for Environmental Justice. You can catch Maria and her team in action in the 2019 film, The Sacrifice Zone.

Jeff Merkley has been one of the Senate’s foremost champions for protecting our environment and taking on climate change since 2009. He’s won bipartisan support to boost the Green Climate Fund, has used his seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to promote American climate leadership on the global stage, and has led the fight in the Senate against Arctic drilling. Senator Merkley introduced the Keep It in the Ground Act to completely end new fossil fuel leases on our federal lands and waters. Senator Merkley also recently championed Senate letters urging President Biden to declare a National Climate Emergency, and opposing Manchin’s permitting reform bill.

Roishetta Ozane is the Organizing Director of Southwest Louisiana/Southeast TX for Healthy Gulf, and is currently organizing against the oil and gas buildout in Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas. She also founded and directs The Vessel Project of Louisiana, a mutual aid and disaster relief organization in Louisiana. Roishetta is a single mom of six and her children are the reason she is fighting so hard to save this planet.

ABOUT FIRE DRILL FRIDAYS:

In October 2019, Jane Fonda and Greenpeace USA launched Fire Drill Fridays as a weekly rally in the nation’s capitol to demand action from leaders to address the climate crisis. The movement grew quickly reaching millions of people through weekly rallies and marches through the capitol’s streets, star-studded arrests at the Hart Senate Building, and live-streamed teach-ins from the Greenpeace USA headquarters. In January of 2020, Fire Drill Fridays expanded nationally with Fonda hosting actions across the state of California. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the movement moved online and has garnered over 11 million viewers across platforms. Up until Fonda recently started filming again for her hit series ‘Grace & Frankie’, Fire Drill Fridays aired live episodes weekly. The event now takes place on a monthly basis via Twitter, Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube. Fire Drill Fridays aims to bring together activists, actors, youth, Indigenous leaders, climate experts, and concerned individuals to take action to pressure politicians to end new fossil fuel projects and enact a just transition to a renewable economy that protects workers and communities. To join the movement or learn more, visit https://firedrillfridays.com/.”