Our chapter's volunteers have been awarded 3 national awards from Sierra Club this year! Please join us in celebrating these acknowledgements for all the hard work our volunteer leaders and community partners have been doing here in Idaho. Stay tuned for more formal announcements and promotions from National Sierra Club, and check out the virtual award celebration event on Wednesday, October 14th—register here now. Congrats to everyone listed below, and THANK YOU for all you do for our environment and communities in Idaho!
Atlas Award
Recipient: Krystal Fairfax
Award Description: Honors volunteers who have made extraordinary administrative contributions to groups, chapters and regional entities. Up to three Atlas awards may be given annually. This award was created to honor Susan E Miller, who provided administrative support to the Council of Club Leaders and the Board of Directors.
Appreciations from our team: Krystal has been an incredible volunteer leader for the Palouse Group of the Idaho Chapter, and the chapter as a whole. She has been one of our most active and involved volunteer leaders in Northern Idaho who is constantly stepping up to take on various administrative tasks and help ensure everything is organized and moving forward. Idaho Chapter staff are deeply thankful for her help, particularly because the Palouse Group is located so far away from the Chapter’s main office in Boise, so having active and reliable on-the-ground leaders is critical.
Krystal helps with our outings, community events, fundraising efforts, tabling at festivals, and leads our monthly volunteer “Coffee Hours” at local coffee shops. After proving her deep commitment to our work, Krystal was elected to join the Chapter’s ExCom in late 2024. As our North Idaho Volunteer Lead & Vice Chair of the local board, we have been so grateful for her willingness to continue stepping up, time and time again, with her time, leadership, and administrative support.
Emerging Changemaker Award
Recipient: Anise Welty
Award Description: Recognizes young Sierra Club volunteers who represent the next generation of environmental leaders. Includes an award of up to $500 to further the work of the recipient(s).
Appreciations from our team: Anise is a leader in the Idaho Climate Justice League, the Idaho Chapter’s team of grassroots youth activists that works to advance equitable clean energy solutions in our state, as well as a member of our statewide board. Anise joined the group as a 9th grade student at the start of 2023, and hit the ground sprinting and hasn’t stopped since. Immediately after joining the group, she started to help plan (and perform in) a climate-themed play for a local festival event, then led and co-wrote a hard-hitting open letter to Idaho Power’s CEO, Lisa Grow, and, at the same time, she also used her incredible writing skills to contribute a piece to the youth team’s climate justice zine.
Since those first projects, Anise has been on the CJL leadership team, spoken powerfully at countless rallies, testified at public hearings, led walkouts, written LTEs, helped draft additional open letters and Op-eds, and spoken on behalf of CJL and the Chapter to the press. She is so dedicated to the group, rarely missing meetings and attending almost all of CJL’s events, actions, and meetings with City staff or local officials—all on top of a rigorous academic workload and involvement in other local organizations. Anise is an incredibly gifted organizer, speaker, and strategist with great political inclination and a sharp lens for justice, equity, and fairness that is applied thoughtfully to the work she does. As she spreads her wings attending American University, we know she'll continue to do great things!
Outings For Action Award
Recipient: Kirsten Strough
Award Description: Honors Sierra Club volunteers at any level who combine outings with education and/or advocacy work to connect people to local and/or national environmental issues.
Appreciations from our team: Kirsten has been a rockstar Outings Leader with the Idaho Chapter and our LGBTQ+ OUTings group for nearly three years now. She is also the founder of Big Gal Backpackers Boise, a hiking/backpacking community group for people with larger bodies. Big Gal Backpackers leaders take folks on slower, shorter hikes and backpacking trips that are free of diet and weight loss culture (which is so ever-present in traditional outdoor recreation spaces). Kirsten is so committed to creating spaced where everyone of any size and skill level can feel welcomed in the outdoors, not judged.
Kirsten is also passionate about outdoor skills education, so that participants don’t just get outside one time and never come back; rather, her hope is that they have the tools to get back outside on their own, build their confidence over time, and maybe even teach others. We can wholeheartedly say that she is deserving of this award. Because of her focus on outdoor inclusion, we have brought in dozens of new supporters and members who we might not have reached otherwise, and drastically improved our Chapter’s offerings of accessible events. Her dedication to our local community and leadership will only continue to bring folks outside in new, accessible ways and teach them essential outdoor skills for years to come.