A committed youth mentor and coach, James has been a wonderful addition to our higher education team!
James Bradford III is certainly no stranger to CCL. In fact, he was a volunteer long before starting his fellowship! Now, he is an undergraduate at Saint Paul College majoring in communications, and he credits his passion for climate advocacy to his curiosity about how climate and environmental issues affect our everyday life and decisions. In particular, he is driven by a desire to help children and his community on a broader scale than he had previously - which is saying a lot, as someone with nearly ten years of experience coaching, mentoring and volunteering in his community. James is especially passionate about serving minoritized youth in all of his outreach efforts.
This year, James has been serving CCL as our North Wind Climate Advocacy Fellow. In this role, he helps both our higher education and regional outreach efforts. Since we don’t have as many active campus chapters in the region yet (though please reach out to us if you’d like to start one!), James has been coaching campus leaders in the Great Lakes Region as they either continue building up their already vibrant chapters, like at University of Michigan, or are just getting one started, like University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. However, this focus on the Great Lakes doesn’t mean he isn’t still giving back to the communities in his region. In fact, James has leveraged his communication and youth outreach talents to help plan a panel for the North Wind Regional Conference featuring youth voices sharing their experiences in the climate movement. He is also planning a youth action day in Saint Paul for the spring term as his passion project!
When he’s not busy with his classes or his fellowship responsibilities, James remains highly involved in his community. As a lifelong athlete, he provides coaching and mentoring to young Black and Brown youth in his community. He leads by example, staying active even when his schedule might be busy. You’ll often see him walking around on Zoom calls! He is also the president of the Diversity Real student group on his campus, which frequently hosts community events (which James of course invites his CCL chapter to table at). We have been so delighted to watch James grow from an energetic volunteer to a faithful climate advocate and fellow!