This post is part of a 10 part blog series to celebrate ACE’s 5th birthday. We’ll be asking ACE staff members to answer 5 questions about their time with the organization, including their favorite stories and some surprise facts about themselves. We’ll profile a different staff member each day! 

ACE Staff Member: AshEL Eldridge

Position: Senior Educator, Northern California

Q: If you were stranded on a desert island with one other ACE staffer, who would it be (and why!)?

Page May. She is very empathic, has a quick mind… and an even quicker communication style. Additionally, she gets how unjust discriminatory laws against some, destroy the life force and possibilities of all society’s participants. With those set of skills, I bet we could quickly harmonize with, empower, and then organize all of the unlikely desert island wildlife to liberate each other from isolated confinement of the island. Humans aren’t the only living things on islands, yo. We would be off the island in no time. 🙂

Q: How did you first get involved with ACE?

A: While I was wrapping up working as Green For All‘s National Spotlight Events Coordinator for the Green Jobs Now campaign, I got an email from Ashlee Jensen, former ACE Program director, about the Educator Position. I peeped it, liked how cool it sounded, but then got back to work. Days later I got a call from a friend of mine, Ambessa Cantave, who had just got the position a month earlier. He told me to apply. Almost 5 years later, I am still here and ACE is still cooler than a polar bear’s toe nails.

Q: What’s your favorite part about working for ACE? 

 A: Presenting. The opportunity to perform, educate, and activate thousands of high school students, in today’s environmental and socio-politically turbulent, and thus, ripe-for-(r)evolution-world, both inspires me and fills me with a great sense of purpose and drive.

Q: It’s no secret that we work hard, and put in some long days. What’s your favorite (eco-themed, if possible) video you like to watch/song you listen to for a mid-day break/pump up session?

A: Ron Finley, an eco-celeb-guerilla-gardener from South Central, just put me on this new addition to the SoS Juice Mixtape:Home Grown.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-3YxY_eAfc[/youtube]

Q: What was your awakening “aha!” moment that got you involved in the climate movement?

A: I was deeply involved in ceremonies with various Indigenous and spiritual communities. My entire worldview shifted for the better when I directly experienced the Earth as a living breathing organism.  Conversely, it became common sense to work to preserve that which gives life to all humanity. After that, I began working with Van Jones, who started Green For All, an organization dedicated to lift people out of poverty through the green economy. That was a series of aha’s, believe me…just listen to that man speak!

Thanks, AshEL! Monday: We introduce Wen Lee, and hear what she has to say about her time at ACE.