Evelyn has been the Chair of Downwinders' Particulate Matter Campaign Committee since its creation last Fall. In that role, she's helped raise the profile of a long-ignored pollutant. She initiated and helped host community meetings on the dangers of PM. She's a liaison between Downwinders and the North Texas Transit Riders to help better protect a population that's routinely exposed to high levels of PM pollution. She coordinated the deployment of Downwinders' portable PM monitors in the Joppa neighborhood that revealed high levels of PM there when City staff was trying to reassure residents with the readings of an EPA monitor nine miles away. Now she's helping to assemble a "Justice for Joppa" support committee that can assist the neighborhood in addressing a long list of grievance and needed reforms. And if that weren't enough, she's also helping direct Downwinders' "Green Streets" bus electrification campaign.

It was the portable air monitoring Evelyn coordinated on behalf of the Joppa community that sealed the fate of the two batch plants seeking permits to set-up shop there. Anyone attending the City Council meting in March when the plant permits were debated heard constant references to the dangers of PM - even by batch plant lobbyists themselves. That was Evelyn's work. That citizen monitoring project has also given new impetus to the city of Dallas joining a regional air quality monitoring network, which would be about the most important local air quality development in a long while.

Evelyn has become a reliable bridge between communities of color and the local environmental scene. Not just in Joppa, but throughout DFW. She's looked upon by both residents and activists as a hardworking honest broker for their concerns. In this capacity she's been responsible for re-focusing Downwinders as an Environmental Justice advocacy group, and re-setting the environmental agenda in Dallas as a whole.

I've only met two organizers I ever felt comfortable enough to hand over the reins to Downwinders at Risk and walk away if I had to. Evelyn's one of them.