Life

This 25-Year-Old Sustainability Superstar is Shooting for Congress

Image by courtesy of erin schrode

By Josefin Dolsten May 24, 2016

Environmental advocacy pioneer Erin Schrode started her community involvement as a 13-year-old, when she co-founded nonprofit Teens Turning Green after discovering that many commonplace cosmetics contain cancerous and other harmful ingredients.

Her work earned her wide recognition — CNN named her one of the “leading lights in the environmental movement,” and the White House featured her in its “Women Working to Do Good” initiative.

The Forward profiled Schrode in 2011 as one of ten young Jews making a difference, for her work with Teens Turning Green and The Schoolbag, a project that provided provided sustainable and ethically produced school supplies to nearly 15,000 Haitian students in need.

Now she’s running for Congress in her hometown district of Marin County, California against three male candidates, including incumbent Jared Huffman, a fellow Democrat, for the congressional seat representing her California hometown district, Marin County.

“A country where a young woman is dissuaded from running for office because she is young or because she is a woman is not one in which I desire to live,” Schrode wrote.

If elected, Schrode, who is Jewish, will stand out from the the average House member, who is 57 years old and male. Currently women make up only a fifth of Congress.

Safety First: Erin Schrode testifies, above, at a California Congressional hearing for a bill sponsored by Teens Turning Green to ban lead from lipstick.

Schrode’s platform emphasizes environmental protection, education reform and human rights, including women’s reproductive rights and workplace equality.

Contact Josefin Dolsten at dolsten@forward.com or on Twitter, @JosefinDolsten

Josefin Dolsten is a New York-based writer who has reported for the Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Times of Israel and other Jewish publications. She currently works as an account director at Fenton Communications, supporting organizations that work to advance racial justice, LGBTQ+ equality, reproductive rights and more. Dolsten earned her B.A. in government from Cornell University and her M.A. in comparative religion and Jewish studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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