Part two of our series on young community leaders profiled by local student journalists follows Quinn Redwoods, a queer activist based in the California Bay Area who organizes to protect their community during wildfire season. YR Media reporter Nina Thompson, a high school student in Berkeley, has the story.
The vision“Woven in with the history of Mask Oakland and our climate activism has been advocating for people like us.”
Quinn Redwoods
The spotlightEach time a fire breaks out in Northern California, local activist Quinn Redwoods and their collaborators spring into action. Walking through Oakland, Redwoods distributes masks to as many people as they can. They hand out masks in places where no one else is paying attention, like crowded underpasses where unhoused people have no options to escape the smoke. They’ll even stop UPS drivers to offer them a mask. Redwoods describes the activity as “organically emerging.”
It all started back in 2017 during the Tubbs Fire, when it was so smoky in the San Francisco Bay Area it wasn’t safe to be outs... Read more
