On April 20, our annual awards celebration, Leaders United for Justice, recognized the everyday advocates making our communities better places to live, work and play.

This year, we forgot the seated dinner party of the past. Instead, we treated guests to an evening of outdoor mingling, social media sharing, live music, inspiring photo displays and, most importantly, the stories of people leading our neighborhoods toward a healthier future.

Elected officials and community leaders spent the night celebrating the progress of our leadership development program, SALTA, and helping us award three icons of environmental justice.

• Keynote Speaker and Spirit of Justice Award: Dolores Huerta
  • As a civil rights activist and co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association, Huerta helped champion the rights of workers in agricultural fields. Her legendary work continues to empower communities to demand equality and social justice.
• Environmental Justice Champion Award: Georgette Gomez
  • San Diego City Councilwoman Georgette Gomez grew up in Barrio Logan, where environmental injustices shaped her future in advocacy. Prior to her election to City Council, Gomez served as EHC’s associate director for policy where she spearheaded the effort for a new community plan for Barrio Logan and fought for climate justice.
• Leadership Empowerment Award: Beatriz Barraza
  • Barraza was instrumental in developing the “promotora” model for peer-to-peer community health promotion, which EHC adopted for SALTA. Twenty years later, SALTA has trained more than 2,500 community members to become leaders for environmental justice in neighborhoods around the world.

Now that the lights have dimmed on a spectacular evening, we want to say thank you. Thank you to every guest who attended and shouted “sí se puede” with us in unison. Thank you to each sponsor for heartfelt dedication to growing leaders from the ground up. Thank you every person who now proudly wears "I am EJ" or "Yo Soy EJ" pins. Thank you to those who could not attend to the event, but still want to make a donation to continue this important work.

Want to relive the celebration? Us too. Visit us on Facebook to see more photos from the evening.

From our social justice awardees, our 2,500 SALTA graduates, our community members and our team at EHC – thank you and see you next year.