Expanding youth access to climate and clean energy careers in (Boston) & Expanding access to healthier soap while creating women-led job opportunities and workforce development in (Uganda)

Initiatives That Your Donation Supports

THE CLIMATE CLUB 🌍 (Boston); championed by the NRDC through its sister network E2—an early climate + clean energy workforce development after-school program designed for students in EJ neighborhoods and Tier 1 school districts who often lack consistent, school-aligned climate career exposure; delivered through 18 industry modules that meet youth where their interests already are and connect those interests to real careers and pathways while exploring and being connected to clean energy and climate careers via internships, apprenticeships, and full-time jobs.
Goal: $20,000.
CLIMATE AND CLEAN ENERGY CAREER LAUNCH SERIES ⚡ (Boston); a three-week, cohort-based summer internship program created in response to funding and budget cuts that limit CBOs’ access to climate/clean energy programming; centralized sessions that multiple community partners can bring their youth to—building climate + clean energy fundamentals and connecting learning to an industry theme deep dive aligned with a sponsor partner.
Goal: $25,000.
THE LUWEERO PROJECT ⚡ (Uganda); the Luweero Community Training & Clean Energy Resilience Center is a community-led training hub built from repurposed shipping containers that prepares youth and adults for the clean energy transition through vocational training, hands-on innovation, and entrepreneurship—building local technical capacity so communities can install, maintain, and sustain clean energy solutions and infrastructure in their own communities—and build the skills to pursue service, employment, and ownership opportunities in surrounding areas over time.
Goal: $24,000 (3 shipping containers × $8,000 each).
MUTIMA SOAPS FOR PURPOSE 🌺♥️🫧 (Uganda); the nonprofit soap arm of We Free Trees Foundation—created because soap is often hard to access in rural Ugandan communities and many options are mass-produced, chemically processed, and costly to import; we expand local access to healthier, sustainable soap by making 100% natural soap locally while advancing women-led community workforce development—employing single mothers and women who need job opportunities and who support our mission to increase access within their communities. We also train them in soap making, financial literacy, digital literacy, and professional development so they too can become their own social impact business owners.
Goal: $12,000.
MUTIMA PADS FOR PURPOSE 🌺♥️ (Uganda); a We Free Trees Foundation menstrual health initiative created to increase access to safe, reusable menstrual products that are better for the body and the planet; we reduce reliance on disposable pads made with harmful materials and chemicals while training and hiring women to make reusable pads locally—supporting girls and new mothers and helping reduce barriers to education, health, and daily life.
Goal: $15,000.
FREE TREES CREATIVE STUDIO & PRODUCTION (Uganda); a community-rooted creative studio built on the mission “to create more access to creation in our communities”—providing music recording and production, podcast and voice services, mixing and mastering, photography and visuals, a content creation hub, and youth/adult training and community classes (music production, instruments, sewing/textiles) so community members can build skills, tell their stories, and grow pathways toward creative opportunity.
Goal: $4,000.

If you’d like your donation to support a specific initiative, note it in your donation message (ex: “Climate Club,” “Career Launch Series,” or “Mutima”). Otherwise, funds will be allocated across priorities based on program needs.

About We Free Trees Foundation🌳

We Free Trees Foundation—a climate education and clean energy workforce readiness organization committed to supporting communities by creating opportunities for youth and communities that strengthen local economies.

Our mission is to strengthen the connection between climate and culture through culturally rooted, creative, and capacity-building programs that advance environmental and climate stewardship, community health, economic opportunity, and generational impact.
We prepare youth and adults for the climate and clean energy transition through training, skilled trades, and entrepreneurship pathways that equip them to build, own, and sustain businesses in the clean energy sector. By creating opportunities that strengthen local economies, we work to ensure communities are not just participants in the transition — but leaders and owners within it.

By strengthening local capacity and supporting pathways to business ownership and employment in the climate economy, we work to ensure communities are not only participants in the transition — but leaders, builders, and owners within it.

1) The Climate Club 🌍
Location📍Boston
Goal: $20,000

The Climate Club is an early climate + clean energy workforce development after-school program designed for youth in Environmental Justice (EJ) neighborhoods and Tier 1 school districts. The program primarily serves middle and high school students, with a strong emphasis on high school youth, connecting environmental learning to real-world career exposure, skill-building, and leadership development. The Climate Club offers 18 industry modules spanning the full spectrum of climate and clean energy sectors and is championed by the Natural Resources Defense Council through its sister network E2 — a national network. The Climate Club is designed to be academically meaningful—not just enriching—and is aligned to Massachusetts DESE curriculum frameworks.

What we do: We give students fundamental and core competencies in understanding the climate and clean energy space—so they understand the climate economy, how it works, and where careers and solutions show up across industries. We then serve as a workforce pipeline that connects students directly to the ecosystem of existing opportunities and programs in the climate and clean energy space—including apprenticeships, internships, fellowships, certifications, and full-time jobs—through our ecosystem partners.

Our goal is not only for students to learn about different climate-related industries, but for them to fully see themselves through the interests they already have—interests that already exist within sustainability and the climate space, even if they don’t realize it yet. Whether a student is passionate about fashion, agriculture, water, conservation, policy, economics, marketing, technology, or the skilled trades, we want them to understand that the climate economy is broad, expanding, and filled with opportunities across every industry. And beyond that: we want them to know they can create opportunities that do not yet exist.

What we cover

Industry and core climate challenges
Solution pathways
Career exposure (guest speakers, mentorship, applied exploration)
Field trip or hands-on learning or certification/technical session

What your donation supports

Facilitators and consistent site-based delivery
Student activities, supplies, and hands-on learning tools
Field trips and workforce exposure experiences
Mentorship and pathway connections through ecosystem partners

2) Climate & Clean Energy Career Launch Series
Location📍Boston
Goal: $24,000

Aim: Work with up to 60 students in EJ communities per 3-week series

The Climate and Clean Energy Career Launch Series is a three-week, cohort-based summer internship model that makes high-quality climate and clean energy education accessible to organizations that could not otherwise afford it—by hosting centralized sessions that multiple community partners can bring their youth to.

What students need is clear: access to careers, genuine curiosity about climate and environmental justice, and openness to learning about clean energy. What organizations need is equally clear: a trusted partner who can deliver the teaching—both foundational and technical—in a way that is relatable, engaging, and affordable, while also opening doors to the industry employers who can grant students real access to the climate economy.

What we do: Students gain Climate + Clean Energy Fundamentals (core competency framework), then connect that learning to an Industry Theme Deep Dive aligned with a sponsor partner—showing how climate and clean energy relate directly to industry. Industry themes can include transportation, the built environment, conservation, agriculture, policy, fashion, utilities, solar, offshore wind, energy storage, and more.

Our goal: Students leave with real competency, clearer direction across industry pathways, and direct connections to next-step opportunities—internships, apprenticeships, fellowships, training programs, certifications, and full-time jobs—through ecosystem partners. Programming is aligned to Massachusetts DESE curriculum frameworks so it can be academically meaningful—not just enriching—and draws from MassCEC-published clean energy education resources and sector guidance, bundled in a way that is more relatable and engaging for students.

What your donation supports

Facilitators and instruction
Industry theme sessions (guest speakers and sector-based learning experiences)
Student learning materials and activities
Field trip / workforce exposure experience
Program logistics (transportation, coordination support, food)

Become an Industry Theme Sponsor Partner

We are seeking industry theme sponsor partners who want to align a three-week series to their sector. Sponsorship functions as both a funding contribution and a partnership opportunity—supporting a specialized industry focus through student engagement activities, applied learning, and field trips that give students direct exposure to real roles and next-step career pathways.

3) The Luweero Project

Luweero Community Training & Clean Energy Resilience Center

Location📍Uganda
Goal: $24,000 (3 shipping containers × $8,000 each)

Our goal: Train 500 youth and adults by 2030

The Luweero Community Training & Clean Energy Resilience Center is a community-led training hub built from repurposed shipping containers that prepares youth and adults for the clean energy transition through vocational training, hands-on innovation, and entrepreneurship. The Center exists because rural communities like Luweero face persistent challenges—water access, unreliable electricity, and limited workforce development opportunities—made worse by a lack of local technical capacity to maintain and implement solutions independently.

What we do: We train communities to install, maintain, and innovate clean energy systems—turning workforce challenges into economic opportunity and environmental impact. Core training areas include Clean Energy Systems (Solar PV, EV charging, clean cooking), Water & Agriculture (solar irrigation, agritech, maintenance), Entrepreneurship (business development, financial + digital literacy), Climate Education, and Technology Literacy (data + digital tools).

Our goal: Launch the first vocational training cohort by June 2026 and train 500 youth and adults by 2030, building local technical capacity so communities can install, maintain, and sustain clean energy solutions and infrastructure in their own communities—and build the skills to pursue service, employment, and ownership opportunities in surrounding areas over time.

What your donation supports

Shipping containers for modular training facilities ($8,000 each)
Training equipment + systems for hands-on learning and real-world deployment
Curriculum and trainers (including teach-the-teacher and local capacity-building)
Vocational training cohorts and community-based learning projects
Tools and materials for clean energy, water, and agriculture training
Entrepreneurship supports (business development + financial/digital literacy resources)

Partnership opportunities

Training & Curriculum: expertise, materials, trainers, teach-the-teacher programs
Technology & Equipment: solar PV, irrigation, EV/charging, clean cooking systems
Infrastructure: shipping containers and modular build-out support
Funding: construction, training cohorts, or community deployment projects

4) Mutima Soaps For Purpose🌺♥️🫧

Location📍Uganda
Goal: $12,000

Our goal: Train & Empower 1,000 women by 2030

Mutima Soaps For Purpose is a nonprofit initiative and the nonprofit soap arm of We Free Trees Foundation, creating 100% natural soap that is better for the body and the planet. Soap is a basic need, yet in many rural Ugandan communities access to soap remains limited. Much of what is available is mass-produced, chemically processed (bad for the body and the environment), and brought in from outside the region—often transported long distances—making it more costly and, in many cases, essentially unaffordable for families and communities at the end.

What we do: We expand local access to healthier, sustainable soap by making 100% natural soap locally while advancing women-led community workforce development—employing single mothers and women who need job opportunities to expand local access to healthier, sustainable soap, while also training them in soap making, financial literacy, digital literacy, and professional development so they too can become their own social impact business owners. We also train communities to make soap to build local capacity over time, and we partner with youth-facing Ugandan nonprofits and community-based organizations to help ensure students going to school have access to soap—including providing soap support to children through Home of Hope Orphanage.

Our goal: Train & empower 1,000 women by 2030 to increase consistent access to healthier soap for children, women, and communities—while strengthening community health and supporting economic stability for women in rural Ugandan communities through employment, training, and community-rooted skill development.

What your donation supports

Materials and supplies needed to create 100% natural soap locally (ingredients, tools, packaging)
Employing single mothers and women in need of job opportunities
Training and support (soap making, financial literacy, digital literacy, professional development)
Training communities to make soap to strengthen local capacity
Providing soap to children who need soap going to school through youth-facing Ugandan nonprofits and community-based partners, including Home of Hope Orphanage

5) Mutima Pads For Purpose🌺♥️

Location📍Uganda
Goal: $12,000

Our goal: Train & Empower 1,000 women by 2030

Mutima Pads For Purpose is a nonprofit initiative under We Free Trees Foundation, on a mission to create more access to safe, reusable menstrual products that are better for the body and the planet. In many communities, menstrual products are too costly to access consistently—especially for girls and new mothers. At the same time, many disposable pads are made with harmful materials and chemicals and contribute to long-term waste. When access is limited and options are unhealthy or unaffordable, it doesn’t just impact hygiene—it can create barriers to education, health, confidence, and daily life.

What we do: We expand access to safe, reusable menstrual pads by making them available locally as an eco-friendly, washable alternative—soft and gentle (no harsh chemicals), leak-proof, and absorbent, using organic materials. We also train and hire women in local communities to make pads as part of a community-rooted workforce development model—so access grows from within the community while women gain job opportunities and skills.

Our goal: Train & empower 1,000 women by 2030 to increase consistent access to safe, reusable menstrual pads for girls and new mothers—while reducing waste and strengthening women-led economic opportunity and community health over time.

What your donation supports

Materials and supplies to create reusable pad kits (organic fabrics, absorbent layers, snaps, sewing supplies)
Training and hiring women to make pads (income + skill-building)
Pad kits for girls and new mothers through local community partners
Program logistics (coordination support, transportation, delivery)

Why reusable pads

Eco-friendly & washable (reusable, less waste)
Soft & gentle (no harsh chemicals)
Leak-proof & absorbent
Long-term cost-saving

6) Free Trees Creative Studio

Location📍Uganda
Goal: $4,000

Our goal: Train 500 youth and adults by 2030

“Our mission: to create more access to creation in our communities.”
WHERE COMMUNITY AND CREATIVITY MEET — YOUR STORY STARTS HERE.

Free Trees Creative Studio & Production is a community-rooted creative studio built to make creative tools, training, and production access more available to youth and local communities—so people can record, create, learn, and grow through music, media, and hands-on skills.

What we do: We provide music recording and production, voice and podcast services, mixing and mastering, photography and visuals, and a content creation hub. We also run training and community classes for youth and adults—music production (FL Studio, Logic, Ableton, beat making), songwriting and vocal coaching, instrument training (piano, guitar, drums), and sewing/textile training.

Our goal: Train 500 youth and adults by 2030 through studio-based learning and community classes—building skills, confidence, and pathways toward creative opportunity and financial independence through creation.

What your donation supports

Subsidized studio access for youth and community members
Training and community classes (instructors + materials for music production, instruments, sewing/textiles)
Creative production support (recording, podcasting, mixing/mastering capacity)
Photography and content creation resources (basic production needs, set support)
Community events & experiences (coordination + engagement activities)

ACCESS IS IMPACT