The Central California Asthma Collaborative has been advancing in Delano to provide better air quality.
“Hosting the monthly meetings has been an important process for creating a safe space where residents are able to voice their concerns with the health effects, including Asthma, that are caused by poor air quality in Delano,” said Sammie Meneses, Climate and Environmental Justice Associate.
The community of Delano has been discussing starting a community charter that would help get the community meetings more formalized. This entails goals from these community meetings and giving an opportunity for all residents to be included in this process.
There has been tremendous progress since the first meeting took place. Local leaders have
been great partners in community engagement, which has allowed for more community
outreach.
“In turn, residents have become aware of their ability to make a change and have
taken action by attending and providing valuable feedback during the meetings,” said Brianda Castro, Climate and Environmental Justice Coordinator.
Meneses said more people are coming to the meetings and being involved. They are providing their opinion on what should be included in the meetings and who they should do outreach to to get everyone involved in this process.
Some of the things that the community members have asked for are more outreach efforts to be done within the community, the data from the monitors, how to use the SJVAir app, more information about the CARES program, and how they can get more resources brought into the community.
Castro said the concentration now is to keep doing as much community outreach to bring awareness to the meetings in hopes of having residents engage in the process of creating a Community Emissions Resilience Plan, which will allow for funds to be allocated to Delano.
Residents know best what is needed here in their community, and their input holds extreme value.
“First steps to improve Air Quality is bringing awareness to residents about what the reality looks like in our community, SJVAir is a free app available to download which gives you real-time data, including alerts when it is unsafe to be outside. The air quality index is based on monitors hosted at local schools and is a reflection of what the local environment is,” said Castro.
The next meeting will be on August 16, and the CCAC will be discussing the data from the purple air monitors in the 10 schools. There will also be a presentation on the CARES Asthma program.
