Advocacy Day at City Hall

Earth Day 2024

Congratulations to Our Cleaner Air Advocates! 

Last Earth Day, April 22, SOMCAN staff and 11 Cleaner Air Advocates went to City Hall to tell San Francisco Supervisors to CLEAN THE AIR IN OUR HOMES! Advocates shared their stories of being impacted by air pollution, as well as our policy solutions for improving indoor air quality. Our advocates participated in 7 meetings over the course of two months to prepare for this advocacy day. You should all be proud of your hard work!

We wanted to spotlight two of our Cleaner Air Campaign leaders, Marti Dulalas and Teresa Dulalas, and asked them to share their experiences advocating at City Hall.

Teresa recalled how “one of the seniors said, ‘When we were in City Hall, we could breathe easier.’ That’s because they have a good air filtration system. We should have the same in our homes!”

Teresa found advocacy work challenging. She said, “It was an eye-opener for me because even after all that we explained to them, we were not getting any type of solid answer. I get it because they’re legislative aides, but it’s still a struggle. It’s difficult to do advocacy.”

For Marti, “the advocacy day was very empowering. As a long-time advocate in the South of Market, it was a whole new experience to talk with staffers and district supervisors. Seeing how the process works at a legislative level was an extraordinary learning experience.” Marti was so inspired by the advocacy day that she is considering running for office herself!

The Cleaner Air Campaign is not done yet! There is still a lot of work to do to make sure that our policy recommendations get passed.

You can listen to Marti and Teresa speak about why we need cleaner air in our homes by clicking on this link. If you want to learn more about our campaign and get involved, please contact Zachary Frial at zfrial@somcan.org or call (510) 603-5350.