As Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers start to take shape across the country, the HEJC is committed to serving communities who are experiencing environmental injustices across EPA Region 7 (Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, and adjoining Indigenous Nations). The HEJC meets communities where they are by removing barriers to funding opportunities and building capacity to ensure environmental equity. The first step in seeking free services from the HEJC is to submit a short questionnaire. This is an opportunity to share details about your organization or work, your environmental or energy justice challenge, and the support you need.

Once we receive that form, you will be assigned to a team member that best aligns with your community or specific needs, and they will schedule a conversation to learn more about your project, challenges, and goals. That could be a single video call, a site visit, or a series of in-person or virtual discussions to help us understand the nature of your challenge and what services we can offer to support your work.

From there, we will work with you to create a work plan outlining the actions we can take together to achieve specific goals related to your environmental justice challenge. Creating a plan helps us understand the challenge and the solutions you want to pursue, the actions we’ll be taking together, and the tools, resources, connections, and additional support we can provide to fill in the gaps.

It also helps keep us all on track as you start to implement the plan. This final stage might include regular check-ins to discuss how work is progressing, providing customized training, templates, or other tools; connecting you to other service providers in our network; providing coaching and support on those actions you need assistance with, and reviewing grant applications and other documents. At a minimum, this process ends with a successful funding proposal and a completed project. But just as important, we hope it results in a lasting relationship, so you have a trusted resource moving forward with your environmental justice work.