Maiya Roelen: To get started, briefly tell us about yourself!

 

Mackenzie Feldman: I'm the founder and co-director of Re:wild Your Campus, and we are a young women-led organization that works with campuses across the country to eliminate synthetic pesticides and support students and groundskeepers in the transition to organic, biodiverse land care.

 

Maiya Roelen: Thank you so much! Who are you as a leader, and what got you started?

 

Mackenzie Feldman: I came to UC Berkeley to play beach volleyball and one day during my junior year, back in 2017, I showed up for practice one day, and our coach had said, if the ball rolls off the court, just let it go because a toxic herbicide was sprayed around the court. My teammate and I were concerned when hearing this.

 

I'm originally from Hawaii, and there's a lot of pesticides that are used in Hawaii to test the GMO corn seeds resistance to pesticides before those seeds get shipped off to places like the Midwest to grow corn. Hawaii is sort of like a testing ground for pesticide use. So, when I was in high school, I got really interested in this issue of pesticides and how it was causing a lot of health problems and environmental problems for my community, so hearing this, it felt like okay, here's a tangible way that I could do something about this. And so, me and my teammate talked to the grounds manager and asked him what he was spraying, and asked if there was something that we could do about it. He said he was spraying a glyphosate-based herbicide called Ranger Pro. If you're not familiar with pesticides and herbicides, essentially pesticides are

chemicals that are used to kill pests. So, in this case, that pest being a weed, an herbicide was used to kill the weeds. This was two years after the World Health Organization had declared glyphosate, which is the active ingredient, a probable carcinogen. So, probably it causes cancer. That's what we were being exposed to. 

 

So, me and my teammate Bridget asked him, you know, can you not spray this? And he said, sure, I just don't have the staff to pick the weeds. But if you girls want to pick the weeds before practice, you and your team, you can do that. And so, that's what we did. We started picking the weeds before practice, and he agreed to never spray there again. We learned an important lesson that day, which was that if you come at a problem with an offer to help, you can actually get something done and be a part of the solution. So then we decided to start this movement to ban herbicides from the entire UC Berkeley campus. We got UC Berkeley to go organic by 2018. 

 

Then I graduated, and was really inspired by this lawsuit that was happening in San Francisco of a groundskeeper named Lee Johnson, who sued Monsanto after getting diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. He was using the same chemical, Ranger Pro, and got exposed to it, and ended up with terminal cancer. So he sued Monsanto, and this lawsuit was taking place in San Francisco, and I happened to be in San Francisco, so I sat in on many days of the trial.  That's when I realized I wanted to expand our work beyond Berkeley to other campuses, and I really haven't looked back since then. 

 

Going back to what type of leader, I try to tell students to start with something really small and expand it from there. Sometimes these problems can feel really insurmountable, and as a leader, I'm just the type of person that’s like, let's jump in, let's see what we can do, let's talk to people, let's start somewhere and not wait for it to be perfect, or not wait to even, you know, figure out if we have all the answers. Let's just dive in. So I think what I tell students is just start in a small area that you feel like you can control, and you'll be surprised what can happen after that. 

 

Now it's been many years, and we run this national organization, and we've worked with over 100 schools, and I've trained hundreds of students, but I wouldn't have predicted that any of that would happen, I think. So, starting small. You don't need to wait for permission, you know, just kind of start. 

 

Maiya Roelen: So now your organization has been around since you graduated?

 

Mackenzie Feldman: Yeah, so we started in 2018. It started first throughout the University of California, and then pretty soon after, went national, so since 2018. 

 

Maiya Roelen: Wow. Congratulations! That's amazing.

 

Mackenzie Feldman: Thank you! I feel lucky. We have a great team, and I love getting to do this work, so I feel grateful.

 

Maiya Roelen: And was that the work that you saw yourself doing or it just happened that way?

 

Mackenzie Feldman: It just happened. I've always been really passionate about the pesticide issue. I studied society and environment, and food systems in college, so I was on the trajectory to do something related to the environment.  But I think a lot of my colleagues these days are groundskeepers, and I don't think I would have imagined that, but there was just nobody else. I wouldn't say it's wise to start your own non-profit if there's already folks doing similar work, but I think in this case, there was nobody focused on higher ed pesticide usage, and challenging the norms of

how landscapes are managed. We see a lot of the organic movement in agriculture, but it doesn't really exist for landscapes. I fell into this niche, I guess. And at the same time, there's herbicides, like Round Up, which became more of a household name because of these lawsuits. People started to become more aware. So the timing I think gave it a lot of momentum.

 

Maiya Roelen: Have you faced challenges, obstacles, or doubts in your journey that you're comfortable sharing, and how did you overcome them?

 

Mackenzie Feldman: I wanted to answer this because I think when you hear someone's story, it sounds like it's really easy. You know, it's like, wow, how did this person achieve all of this? I could never possibly achieve that, so I think having challenges is such a real part of all of it. Both the challenges of building an organization and the challenges of just going up against this particular issue.

 

I think, again, the issue of pesticides wasn't as mainstream, even just five, six years ago, and so I found myself, when I first started, oftentimes feeling like the crazy person in the room that was saying, you know, we gotta get campuses to stop using pesticides. People didn't really believe that there was any other way to manage campuses, or didn't believe that these chemicals were harmful. A lot of times, if it's your job to spray them, you either don't want to believe it or have the education to know that these chemicals are really toxic. So I found myself often battling with people on whether or not this chemical causes cancer or not. That's just really frustrating, because there's so much science out there that is done by the industry that can kind of, like, prove your point if you're pushing chemical usage. I thought to myself, why am I engaging in these discussions when I know for a fact that these chemicals are dangerous.

 

So, it was challenging, I think, and trying to teach students, you know, 18-year-olds, had to go up against their 60-year-old grounds manager and tell them to change the way that they're doing their job is very difficult. But I think, in large part because of that first lawsuit like Johnson v. Monsanto, it really changed the conversation around pesticides. I think a lot of people started to become more aware of these chemicals being really dangerous, and just opened up that conversation, from our organization continuing to push and challenge the norms. I'd like to think we made a dent in that conversation - around the dangers - so that was a challenge that we face, but it's gotten a lot easier, I think. We used to be primarily focused on student advocacy,

and training students how to organize and start these campaigns. We’ve sort of pivoted to becoming more technical assistance, because what we found is now, ground managers are coming to us saying, we get it, we know these chemicals are harmful, I just don't know what to do instead. So we've really focused more on the education and training for them.

 

We still work a lot with students, but right now we're developing a six-week course for groundskeepers on how to get your campus to go organic, and that is really exciting to me, because I think we're seeing a lot of growth in that area. So I would just say if you feel like you're the crazy person in the room bringing up an issue, just keep going, because I think eventually the tide does shift. It turns, and all of a sudden there are more people. It's important to surround yourself with people who believe the same as you in those rooms so you don't feel like you're alone. 

And then I think the other big challenge was starting an organization and fundraising and all of that. No one teaches you how to do that in college, and it was definitely a challenge. I think I got lucky mentors who believed in the work and gave us initial support that allowed us to grow. 

 

I would just say if you're building something, the more conversations you could have with people, the better. Just be super open to connecting with anyone that is recommended to you, and I believe if you're doing work that is important and that matters, the path kind of becomes clear. Throughout all the challenges, I just kept going and things started to work out.

 

Maiya Roelen: Tell us about your current platform, initiatives, community projects, successes, jobs or impact, and where you want to go from here.

​

Mackenzie Feldman: So the organization's called Re:wild Your Campus. You can find it at rewildyourcampus.org, and we have 3 main programs. The first one is the Ground Up Advocacy Boot Camp, and that's for students and community members. We offer it twice a year, and it’s a 5-hour training. We just had it in January, so the next one will be in August, and it's free for students. You can join and learn more about the issue of pesticides and climate change, and the history of pesticides and environmental racism and different issue areas. Then the second part is around organizing and advocacy and how to bring this movement to your campus, or to your community. Even if you're not interested in this specific issue, I think you can take the same learnings and apply it to an issue that you want to bring to campus, whether that's zero waste, or you want to have composting on campus, etc.

 

The second program is a certification that we launched a couple years ago, and it's called the Green Ground Certification. It's kind of like the LEED building certification, if you're familiar with that…bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. There was no standard that existed to measure universities; how ecological their land care was. Often, students would tell their grounds folks, hey, we want to have a safer campus. And they'd say, we're already managing the campus in the best way that we can. And it's like, well, what does that mean? And so now, there's a way to sort of measure those standards. Bronze is that at least half of the managed acres of campus have to be synthetic pesticide-free, and then it also includes “Are you incorporating native plants? Are you working with students? How are you saving water? Committing to phasing out gas-powered equipment and transitioning to electric equipment?” As you get to the higher level, platinum being 100% organic, that includes sports fields and everything.

 

We've certified 17 institutions so far, and mostly universities, but we've also started certifying K-12 school, a museum, and a nature center, and so in terms of where we want to go, I think I really want to expand this beyond, universities and bring it to hospitals, and places of worship, like churches, as well as tech campuses. Really anywhere that has a green space.. You know, and with hospitals, for example, it makes sense, of course, that the ground should be managed in ways that aren't giving people cancer, and other diseases. So, I'm excited about that. It's called the Green Ground Certification. 

 

The last program that we offer is this organic and rewilding pilot project. If your school wants to do a project, but doesn't have the expertise, we can bring in an expert, whether that's teaching grounds how to maintain the same lawn look without using chemicals or you want to do rewilding and challenge the norm of what a typical campus looks like. Maybe convert an underutilized space to a native prairie, or remove the lawn and do native plants instead. So that's exciting! We have projects going on around the country. You can just reach out and inquire and if you're reading this, you can reach out and we can talk about it.

 

Maiya Roelen: Where do you draw inspiration or energy for the work that you do?

 

Mackenzie Feldman: First off, from students, talking to folks like yourself. I think I felt this way as a student, sometimes feeling really overwhelmed or disempowered. Especially if you're studying something related to the environment and feeling so depressed in class. I don't think universities often give students enough tangible things that they can plug into or channel their energy into something positive. I love getting to talk with students and helping them turn their eco anxiety into a specific project. I meet so many students that are really passionate and fired up to make change. Maybe I'm biased, but I think what I love about this movement is starting somewhere really tangible, like, literally where your feet are, you know? Like, can we make a change in this specific area? I draw a lot of inspiration from students. I know that whether or not they're able to achieve this while they're in school, by the time they graduate, they're feeling empowered and feeling like their voice matters, and they can make change, which is so important beyond university. 

Looking in your community and being like, hey, I can do something about this problem, you know, we need more people feeling like that. So I draw a lot of inspiration from the passion and energy of young people.

 

Second, I love getting to work with the groundskeepers, grounds managers…they're just some of the most passionate people and really tied to the landscape and really proud of the work that they're doing. They are oftentimes overlooked, and undervalued and kind of invisible on campus. They're often there in the early hours, kind of disconnected from the campus body, and so I love getting to highlight the work that these land stewards are doing and helping them feel more appreciated and connected to students.

 

One of the best things that we can do is be facilitators between different campuses, and introduce new folks to each other when they have ideas or challenges. So I draw a lot of inspiration from these folks. 

 

Maiya Roelen: Are there people or mentors who supported you in this process of leadership development?

 

Mackenzie Feldman: I was going to say specifically in leadership development, I actually got a leadership coach last year because for a while, I was the Executive Director, and then last year brought on one of our staff, Sheina, to be co-director with me. I wanted to share the responsibility, and the load with someone else, and that's been really amazing to have co-directors. I think it fits with our values of just shared leadership. So we hired a leadership coach to help us figure out how to divide up the leadership.  I wanted to bring that up, because I think oftentimes when you're the founder, the CEO, the director, whatever…you don't have a boss. You're kind of figuring it out as you go, and there's not someone who's telling you what to do. That's great in a lot of ways, but I think it could keep you stagnant in a way if there's nobody who's challenging you to level up. So I would just say it's so important to invest in a leadership coach. I've learned a lot from Morella, our leadership coach, and it's almost like a work therapist in a way. I think it has helped me grow to become a better leader. That's been a fairly new thing. You obviously gain a lot of leadership skills in general starting something. But once you have it underway, I think it's really nice. And, I found that funders want to invest in leadership development for self-starters, so I've loved that, and I'd highly recommend it. 

 

Maiya Roelen: How does your work impact environmental conservation and climate change?

 

Mackenzie Feldman: I think oftentimes the issue of pesticides gets left out of the climate conversation. We think a lot about oil and gas and energy usage when we're talking about climate change, but 99.9% of pesticides are also derived from fossil fuels. The same way, we’re contributing to the climate crisis by what we're putting into the soil. I think there's this huge opportunity to mitigate climate change by improving our soil. So if we can transition to organic land care, we can sequester more carbon, and healthy soils help retain more water, and that's just organic management. If we're talking about rewilding and incorporating more native plants, there's even more benefits of removing CO2 from the atmosphere and both helping to mitigate the climate crisis. Also, just adapting. If we're going to see more floods or droughts, having landscapes that are what the original land would have looked like prior to colonization is the best thing that we can do to be climate resilient. So we talk a lot about decolonizing aesthetics. The more areas of campus that we can convert back to what that campus would have looked like, the more resilient we will be when it comes to climate change.

 

Biodiversity loss is another issue that is also so interdependent with climate change, but they're often seen as very separate issues. So at the same time that we're trying to eliminate pesticides, we're trying to increase biodiversity, and make more habitat for pollinators, which are so essential for our life. It's been good to work with schools on fitting this ecological land care into their climate plans, because a lot of universities already have climate plans, but they're not thinking about land care and they’re mostly focused on energy, or sometimes food, but not really about how their campus landscapes are managed. And, it's a relatively small thing, but when you think about there's 4,000 universities, and if we maintained each of those in an ecological way, like, it is a lot of land. 

 

Also, I'll just add, universities are these epicenters and seen as models of innovation that we look to, as a society, as these forward-thinking places. So it just doesn't make sense if the way that these campuses are managed is the opposite of that. You know, these lawns that have no ecological benefit and require a lot of chemicals. So this opportunity to manage landscapes in ways that are very forward thinking could hopefully ripple out to impact communities beyond just the college campus.

 

Maiya Roelen: You mentioned with the use of pesticides, it often occurs to maintain an aesthetic of traditional, monoculture turfgrass lawn that has become the American standard. Do you often run into obstacles at institutions where they want to maintain this appearance or aesthetic, but they don’t know how to do that without using harmful chemicals? Or perhaps they are willing to try something different, but they want the same result. What do you tell people?

 

Mackenzie Feldman: Yeah, that's a great question. So we do two things as an organization. One is to teach folks how to maintain that same aesthetic without using chemicals, and then the other is challenging that aesthetic and doing more rewilding. And the rewilding piece is, I think, more exciting to a lot of folks, especially students. What we found is we've actually been working a lot more in the space of training folks on how to keep the lawn without chemicals, because schools are very unwilling to give up that aesthetic a lot of times. Especially when you're talking about sports fields, or where you're doing commencement, or there's just the typical campus lawn where everybody hangs out. That's going to be the last place that would ever be converted into a rewilded site. So, if you're going to want to keep that aesthetic, and at the same time, we can push other areas on campus to change, but if you're going to keep that aesthetic, we at least want you to manage it in a way that's not using synthetic pesticides and fertilizers.

 

We do these pilot projects, and basically what it comes down to is just a new way of thinking of, maintaining healthy soil. If you have healthy soil, you can grow healthy grass, and that healthy grass will out-compete the weeds. So it's kind of like thinking about your body. Instead of waiting until you get sick and then taking an antibiotic, what are all the things you can do to prevent yourself from getting sick, right? Like, eating healthy, exercising, all of those things. In the same way, what we do is we'll bring in an expert, the grounds team will take soil tests, and then based on those soil tests, the expert will come up with a plan. It’s really about feeding the microbes in the soil. It looks a lot like applying compost tea instead of fertilizer, or changing the mowing height to have thicker roots, and thicker, stronger turf grass or overseeding with grass seed, or aerating to reduce compaction. All of these different cultural practices. It doesn't take more money or necessarily more time, it's just a different way of thinking. Instead of going out and applying the pesticide, you're on the aerator aerating your grass. Maybe it’s not as sexy as doing the rewilding, but there's a huge missing gap, because there is just no knowledge for folks on how to do organic. 

 

We worked with Berkeley and Berkeley is now completely organic. Harvard was organic before we started working with them, but Harvard is completely organic. Seattle University, we have organic pilot projects now at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Oberlin College, and we just launched one at Stanford and University of Iowa, so it's happening!

 

Then the idea is they're doing this on two to three pilot sites, and then once they get comfortable with it, they can expand that to the rest of campus. It's really geared for the folks on the ground, and they'll learn, and learn from other schools. We'll have a lot of presenters from other schools because a lot of folks don't think that it can be done. We're here to show that actually a lot of schools are now making these moves, and their lawn will look even better, just without having to use the chemicals.

 

Maiya Roelen: That compromise is such a good point. Sometimes people still want the grass, but they don't want the pesticides. I think that part of that conversation is always trying to meet people where they're at while simultaneously trying to make progress, which is sometimes a battle, but it sounds like your organization is doing it beautifully. 

 

Mackenzie Feldman: Thank you and sometimes there's aesthetic standards that can shift. You have power as students, like, maybe they're maintaining it to this really high aesthetic standard, because they don't want any weeds. They could also just mow it and leave it and not even have to go through this whole organic transition, and I think that's where student voices could come in and be like, hey, we're fine with the dandelions on the lawn. We just don't want you to spray these cancer-causing chemicals. There’s also some middle ground. You could push for more weed pressure because oftentimes they're getting that from somebody else, and they’re supposed to be maintaining it in this way that has zero weed pressure. But when you ask students, they don't care, they don't even notice it, and so the more students can vocalize that is really important.

 

Maiya Roelen: What can other youth do to be involved with your work, or what is your call to action? How can volunteers potentially assist your mission?

 

Mackenzie Feldman: The first thing is you can sign up for our next bootcamp. The next one is not until August, but sign up, and if you want to just meet me or my staff, we meet with students every week to chat about how you can plug in. I would just say reach out if this interests you at all and you can check out our green ground certification. We also have a template that you can send as a student to your school. As a student or community member, you can reach out to decision makers on your campus, and you could copy-paste this email and advocate for your school to get certified. I would say that's the best way to start, and plug in, and reach out to me.

 

Maiya Roelen: What is your advice for other young people in terms of creating positive change toward environmental justice, climate justice, sustainability, or the mission of your organization?

 

Mackenzie Feldman: I guess just to repeat myself, I would say start really small. Look around at your community. We're all passionate about different things, but the thing that fires you up, like…starting somewhere and talking. Don't be afraid to talk to the folks who make those decisions. That's how I got started and you'd be surprised. Oftentimes people are just doing things because that's the way that it's always been done, and sometimes it just takes one person to start asking questions about “why are we doing this this way? And, can we change?” And oftentimes, people are open to that. They just need support, so just jump in, and start asking questions. Starting at your campus is a really great way to just learn how change is made and learn how to institutionalize change. Those lessons are really applicable beyond campus, too, when you're looking at changing policies in your community, and all of that. I'm happy to be available as a resource to continue to share and hear what your challenges are and see if I can be of any support.

 

Maiya Roelen: Thank you so much Mackenzie!