Happy New Year! We are welcoming 2025 with double the gratitude, for both of the January Climate Heroes of the Month, Serafina Scalo and Alannah Gibney! With their internships wrapped up at the end of 2024 we can’t think of a better way to start things off.

Serafina Scalo

Serafina began working on climate justice in 2018 when she joined Austin Climate Coalition to write articles on sustainability and attend local actions. Since then, she has discovered a lifelong passion for community organizing, and is fueled by the belief that the same changes needed to ensure a climate-resilient future will also create greater access to community care, meaningful work, affordable transport and housing, mental and physical wellbeing, and more joyful lives for all people.

Serafina then started interning with 350 Colorado in September. From the start, the 350 Boulder County team profited from her incredible movement building skills. As a current student at CU Boulder, Serafina works as a student organizer to bring together people with shared values in environmental stewardship, music, and community care.

With the Boulder County team, Serafina helped to plan, promote, and execute projects like an Ikigai Workshop to bring people to their “why” in the Climate movement, climate cafés to process Climate grief and introduce members to Solarpunk, and workshops connect people with the concept of Environmental Justice in Colorado. From Apple Picking to music concerts and zine creation, Serafina acted as a jack of all trades in this internship!

“Serafina is someone that you learn from and are inspired by just by having a conversation with her. She worked with the Boulder County Team to emphasize community, heart, and art in our climate events – Serafina is a powerful and courageous person to work with.” – Melissa Burrell, 350 Boulder County Team Coordinator

 

Serafina was a critical part of statewide movement building efforts in this internship as well, assisting with the ZIP Leader program that had launched in July of 2024. As a fellow ZIP Leader for her zip code in Boulder, she was able to bring a unique perspective as an organizer on the ground. She helped improve onboarding materials by creating a Welcome Guide with simple next steps for new people that join. Her constant thoughtfulness came through while working on this in asking the right questions, and bringing warmth and kindness to the spaces she was in.

As a musician and writer, Serafina is especially passionate about using creative forms of discussion, gathering, and communication to deepen emotional engagement with the crises of our times, and is currently a part of a community group called Climatique who work together to explore how media like clothing and zines, events, and community can inspire and empower more people to join the movement to protect our future on earth and create a world free of oppression and extraction. 

 

From Serafina:

I look forward to creating more time to focus on making earth and liberation centered music and co-creating events that build mass movement energy through the experience of shared joy, community, and collective dreaming of the pathway to a better world. I also more broadly hope to explore how more spaces of joy and healing can be created that acknowledge our times (including the shared responsibly for collective action, and the reality of the climate crisis, oligarchy, and struggles of working class people) while still being a positive experience for individuals, and how community building can be combined with tangible collective action teams to increase participation in the effort for collective liberation and earth protection. I hope to keep inspiring more people to recognize the interconnectedness of our wellbeing and the joy and responsibly of prioritizing the collective and the earth, and to collaborate with others to create more systems of mutual aid, political education, local food systems, justice-oriented community spaces, organizing strategy, and creative projects.

In her free time, you can find Serafina reading books about healing justice, music, and everything else, playing guitar, volunteering at a farm, wandering through the woods, or spending time with her beloved community.

Alannah Gibney

“My passion for the environment started when I first moved to Colorado,” says Alannah. “After moving here from a state that doesn’t have fracking my family learned they were going to put 144 wells near our neighborhood. Concerned about the health impacts, my mother took us out around the neighborhood to raise awareness of the oil and gas companies plan.” She remembers from a young age many days spent protesting at city council meetings. 

Alannah got involved with 350 Colorado eight months ago in May as our Promoting Climate Solutions intern all while kicking off her final year of high school. From there she got involved by attending Youth Action Committee calls and meeting other organizers. Before we knew it she was truly thriving as a jack of all trades in her new role, and brought a new kind of energy to countless new and existing climate spaces.

Her willingness to adapt, collaborate, and question the status quo, helped bring so much life to our Promoting Climate Solutions, Defunding Climate Disaster, and Legislative Action Committee calls in 2024! A number of her projects involved using her creative skills to come up with catchy graphics that could promote events and actions. One of those projects was for our workshop we put on in October around building more equity and diversity in the movement. Alannah came up with designs and implemented suggestions until the perfect look was achieved! She also showed off her skills in graphic design as she was behind many of the amazing graphics for our committee calls, Summer of Heat, and Insure our Future campaigns! 

 

From Alannah:

My internship at 350 Colorado was my first experience with an organization that shared my passion. I learned so much about sustainability and the importance of promoting local solutions. The 350 Colorado staff and other organizations I became connected with helped me get over my climate anxiety as they made me realize there are so many good people out there that care about the environment and are willing to make changes to sustain it. I plan to use the experience and lessons I gained while working with 350 Colorado to pursue a degree in climate policy.

Alannah is currently a senior at Prospect Ridge Academy High School, and is on the girls varsity Cheerleading squad and Soccer team. She is passionate about living sustainably only ever shopping at thrift stores, composting, and doing what she can at home to lessen her environmental impact. “I love to read and write during my free time as well as make my own clothes,” she says. With her deep affection for the environment and learning to live sustainably, she hopes to carry these passions with her into a degree in Climate Policy, and eventually a career that will combat climate change on the legislative level!


 

A huge thank you to the both of you Serafina and Alannah! You each brought your unique experiences and gifts that ultimately move Colorado and the world towards a better, collective good. We are inspired and uplifted knowing the continued positive impact you will have in the world. All the best in this next chapter forward and a wonderful 2025!

 

Written by Chelsea Alexander, Melissa Burrell, and Matt Gose

Want to be our next Climate Hero of the month? 
Join the climate movement and shine with your unique skills! Email volunteer@350colorado.org.
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