Energy activist Keviea Guiden honored as Great Waters Group’s Environmental Hero

MILWAUKEE — The Great Waters Group of the Sierra Club is pleased to announce that it has named Keviea Guiden of the Northside Rising co-op of Citizen Action as its  Environmental Hero of 2024. Great Waters Group Chair Jenny Abel presented the award at the holiday party in December.

In that role and even before she worked for Citizen Action, Guiden has been an active member of our coalition that is addressing the issue of energy burden in Milwaukee. She has been a leader in this movement to try to hold We Energies accountable for the disproportionately high percentage of income that majority Black and Latine neighborhoods have to devote to energy bills. She has organized teach-ins, protests in front of We Energies’ offices, a speak-out and speak-up event on Sherman and Burleigh, knocked on doors in northside neighborhoods to collect energy burden stories from residents, and provided neighbors with bus passes so they could travel to public hearings to testify about their experiences with high electricity and gas bills.

Guidenlead]also conducts audit walks. Recognizing that climate change is causing more frequent and more severe storms and that in neighborhoods lacking a lot of green space there can be a lot of standing water after big storms, Guiden’s audit walks involve looking for downed power lines and trees. She takes pictures of what she finds and sends them to the city and county offices that can remove them. In addition to doing these walks around Milwaukee city neighborhoods, Guiden has also done audit walks in Franklin and Oak Creek.

Guiden also works with Wisconsin Climate Table, where she helps to collect stories from those most affected by the current climate emergency. She volunteers with 1000 Friends and advocates for safe streets for pedestrians and bike riders. She pushes for the development of green spaces and tree canopies, and the removal of impervious surfaces.

Guiden is also volunteering with the Sierra Club in its fight to stop the construction of new fossil gas plants. In the past year she distributed 3,000 weatherization kits to her neighbors. She has organized a wellness fair, is a Climate Action Navigator with the state Office of Sustainability and Clean Energy; serves on the state climate justice committee of the NAACP; and volunteers with Forward Wisconsin, Clean Economy Coalition of Wisconsin and the Coalition on the Lead Emergency.

Meanwhile, Guiden finds time to be a proud mother, grandmother and friend to the many community members whose lives she has touched. The Great Waters Group is grateful to benefit from Guiden’s energy, passion and dedication in the local Sierra Club work.

The Great Waters Group is the local, four-county affiliate (Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties) of the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3.5 million members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person’s right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying and legal action.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.