KCAF'S SPRING 2025 GRANTEES
Kye’s Climate Action Fund believes that the success of the climate movement depends on collaboration and inclusivity: across sectors, disciplines, geographies, life experiences, and identities of every kind. We are proud and excited to introduce our first cohort of grant recipients, whose work spans climate science, justice, and education!
Alyssa Valdez
Alyssa Valdez is a current PhD student at UC Riverside who is studying manure
management and methane mitigation in California’s commercial dairy farms. Alyssa will use KCAF funds to support living costs and to build and test a cheap, user-friendly handheld spectrometer to enable local farmers and community scientists to detect methane leaks from anaerobic digesters.
Mariana Reyes
Mariana Reyes is a current PhD student at UC Riverside who is studying emissions of CO2, CH4, N2O, and NH3 from soils amended with frass, a potentially environmentally-friendly organic fertilizer, and emissions of CH4, N2O, CO2, and NH3 from dairy farms in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Mariana will use KCAF funds to help cover living expenses and to free up her time to focus on advancing her PhD candidacy.
Sabrina Chapa
Sabrina is the Founder and Executive Director at Ties to La Tierra (TIES), an ecological justice organization of intertribal indigenous women and youth that works on climate resilience projects and green workforce development in the fossil-fuel dominated Texas Gulf Coast region. Sabrina will use KCAF funds to help pay student loans and living expenses while she focuses her energy on fighting petrochemical interests and expanding her organization’s reach.
Sage Lenier
Sage Lenier is the Founder and Executive Director of Sustainable and Just Future (SJF), an emerging Gen Z nonprofit that addresses the environmental education gap by equipping the next generation with the knowledge and skills they need to become climate solutionists. Sage will use KCAF funds to sustain her team’s work developing an innovative docuseries and securing large, recurring grants to ensure the sustainability of her organization.
