We are dedicated to addressing environmental injustices and improving health equity in the Kansas City and Surrounding Region

We work to enable and empower youth and adults in the region’s most vulnerable communities.

Your Community, your impact:
Read our action plan to become an environmental health leader today.

Empower yourself and your community. Dive into our action plan, fostering
knowledge and skills for impactful environmental health leadership and
systemic change.

What we are doing:

Building on Your Acts of Courage: Unveiling Our Progress and the Momentum of
Positive Change.

Toxic Tours
CleanAirNow

Kansas City Justice 40rward Community Tour

Kansas City residents, particularly Latinx and Black communities, grapple with a barrage of environmental and health hazards stemming from industrial pollution, traffic, heat, and flooding risks. Historically marginalized by discriminatory practices like redlining and zoning, these communities face disproportionate exposure to pollution and lack access to green spaces and adequate healthcare.

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Understanding Environmental Justice and Taking Action for Equity

Environmental Justice takes the mission further, advocating for fair treatment, equal protection, and the just enforcement of environmental laws for all, regardless of race, culture, or income.

CleanAirNow is an environmental justice organization dedicated to combating air pollution and promoting clean air for all communities. 

Atenas Mena

Atenas Mena is the Environmental Health Director and shares a co-leadership role at CleanAirNow. Atenas was born and raised in Kansas City and is a proud first-generation Mexican American. She received her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Avila University in 2014 and went on to receive her master’s in nursing leadership from Missouri Western State University in 2019.

In addition to working as a nurse, Atenas received extensive environmental health training in the field, working with the Children’s Mercy Environmental Health Program team, as both an educator and a team coordinator. She has worked continuously throughout the last few years with CleanAirNow through boots-on-the-ground projects, served on the board of directors, and has recently transitioned into the current leadership role as Environmental Health Director. Atenas centers her work around reducing health inequities, educating communities on environmental health impacts, and empowering community members to have a voice and fight for equity and environmental justice.

Atenas recently received The Sapling Award in recognition of her outstanding commitment and leadership in environmental health nursing. This Award seeks to recognize a nurse leader who goes beyond everyday nursing endeavors to actively promote and protect environmental and human health and advance environmental justice.

Beto Lugo Martinez

Beto is an environmental justice organizer and co-executive director of CleanAirNow. He serves to raise community voices in the fight against environmental racism and to overcome the systemic exclusion of frontline communities from the decision-making process. His lived experience, growing up fenceline to a petrochemical facility continues to drive his work at the intersection of climate, environmental justice, and public health. He is a founding member of the California Environmental Justice Coalition, Co-Founder of La Union Hace La Fuerza, a farmworker justice organization and member of national CJ & EJ networks including the EJ Leadership Forum, Building Equity and Alignment (BEA) and the National Leadership Advisory Board Member of the Moving Forward Network.

Beto’s contributions to the movement include organizing, legislation that prioritizes environmental justice and community-led research amongst many other community-engaged initiatives that directly inform state policy. He has co-authored multiple academic publications on community-based participatory research, air pollution, data accessibility, and community engagement. In August 2023 was invited to continue serving through 2025 as a member of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Air Act Advisory Committee, to represent a grassroots frontline perspective. He also serves in advisory board roles of professional associations and academic institutions, such as the American Public Health Association’s Center for Climate, Health and Equity, Children’s Environmental Health Sciences Translational Research at USC, Community Engagement Core of the Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center at USC, Health Effects Institute Environmental Justice Advisory Group and USC MPH Public Health Advisory Board Member for the Trojan Scholars for Advancement in Public Health.

Beto is currently involved in a research project titled “Building Momentum to Bridge Climate and Health Across KU Campuses and the Community supported by the Health Humanities and Arts Research Collaborative, The Commons, and the Office of Research at the University of Kansas.”