Are you ready to feed “The Little Fire in All of Us that Fights for Greatness”? Pick up a jar of Angry Man Salsa where 100% of profits help feed people in need. Launched by New Sun Rising friend, partner, and artist Baron Batch, Angry Man Salsa started ramping up operations at the Millvale Food + Energy Hub as a social enterprise by Moose MODE Inc in late 2025.
The Launch Environmental Justice Incubator program supports nonprofit and social enterprise leaders over a six-month journey, blending monthly group cohort workshops, educational speakers, and individual one-on-one technical assistance. Curriculum topics included: Project Planning, Grant Writing + Fundraising, Collaboration, Evaluation, Management, Sustainability + Future Planning.
Launch Environmental Justice is a joint program of New Sun Rising and RiverWise, initially offered as part of the Justice 40 Opportunity Navigator program.
As a large-scale investment for food justice, Royally Fit aims to create a food hub and community safe third space called The Healing House, operating it for the distribution of nutritionally-tailored CSA boxes along with nutrition education programs, workshops and partnerships with agricultural stakeholders. Serving as the first phase of building The Healing Village, The Healing House will empower individuals and our communities with the access, knowledge and skills to improve lives through better nutrition and regenerative agriculture.
We seek to support families in underserved communities in a simple, healthy way with The Healing House, serving as an introduction to wellness routines which are important at every stage of life. We intend to catalyze this transformation through produce prescription boxes (nutritionally tailored distributions of fresh fruit and vegetables), herbalism and nutrition education, and improved connections with healthcare partners.
Established in 2022, the West View Urban Farm is the first of its kind in the borough. Led by a group of community volunteers, the farm is an opportunity to grow fresh, healthy food, build community, and provide for those in need. The farm is the site of the Casper Reel cabin, which was completed in 1794. The property is the ancestral lands of the Iroquois, as well as the Shawnee and Lenape. We acknowledge their forcible removable from their ancestral home and work to honor the ancestral stewards of this land as we farm and create community on this site.
Do you or your community envision a project that could improve health, climate resilience, and/or economic opportunity? Nonprofits, municipal leaders, and residents in Allegheny or Beaver County are encouraged to get support by attending an Ignite EJ workshop. Participants will be better informed about how Environmental Justice relates to their community project and accessing federal Justice 40 grants, while receiving support to develop and communicate their project plan.
The Environmental Justice designation identifies communities that are considered disadvantaged due to exceeding the burden thresholds established in one or more of the following areas: climate change, energy, health, housing, legacy pollution, transportation, waste & wastewater, and workforce development, and an associated socioeconomic burden.
New Sun Rising and RiverWise invite you to receive support designing and pitching their community project. Participants will be better informed about how Justice 40 and Environmental Justice relates to their community project as well as how to prepare for government funding opportunities. Learn more about our Justice 40 Opportunity Navigator and EJ census tracts in Allegheny and Beaver County here.
Over 30 projects received support and three projects who won the pitch competition were given direct admission into the Launch EJ Incubator: Ginger Brooks Takahashi for General Sisters, Mary Alice Gettings for Aliquippa Food Co-op, and Ebony Lunsford Evans for Out of the End Incorporated.
We encourage you and one additional team member to register for the workshop nearest your project location.
***Projects who attend an Ignite EJ workshop will be given preference for the Launch EJ incubator (details to be announced June 2024)
Workshop participants will benefit through:
The categories of investment that fall under Justice 40 include areas like: climate change, clean energy and energy efficiency, clean transit, affordable and sustainable housing, training and workforce development, remediation and reduction of legacy pollution, and the development of critical clean water and wastewater infrastructure. All participants in the pitch event will be connected with SWPA Municipal Project Hub support for developing community-serving projects.
The Justice 40 Opportunity Navigator is a partnership between New Sun Rising and RiverWise.
Energy Efficiency Empowerment builds upon the rich legacy of Conservation Consultants, Inc., a nonprofit organization that dedicated over 40 years to promoting energy efficiency and conservation in Pittsburgh.
Our knowledge base is rooted in years of serving local homeowners and conducting over 400 energy audits from 2017 to 2020. These audits focused on middle- and lower-income single-family homes.
Among the key findings, we discovered:
Energy Efficiency Empowerment is here to illuminate these issues and assist those who aspire to do better. Our vision is to transform the home renovation processes, reducing the amount of energy needed to heat and cool our dwellings. By doing so, we aim to make a positive impact on carbon emissions and climate preservation.
To achieve this goal, Energy Efficiency Empowerment employs a comprehensive approach with the following components:
Our motto is simple: Making Energy Efficiency Visible. Through our efforts, we hope to raise awareness, educate, and empower homeowners, contractors, and communities to embrace energy efficiency practices, ultimately contributing to a greener, more sustainable future for all.
The RESTORE project aims to prevent violent extremism by harnessing the powerful role of trusted community leaders. We believe, whether social workers, school counselors, healthcare professionals, faith leaders, or therapists, these community leaders can play a crucial role to support ideologically motivated members of our communities to reject hate and abandon violence and instead engage in new ways of thinking and acting.
The RESTORE training offers evidence-based tools and methodologies for working with ideologically motivated individuals. It is crucial to our RESTORE model that participating community leaders stay embedded in the personal and/or professional contexts in which they already have legitimacy and authentic relationships. So participating in the RESTORE training does not mean taking on an entirely new professional role, but allows community leaders to integrate a new purpose and new competencies within their existing work.
We are looking for you, if…
If this sounds like you, we would love for you to apply for the RESTORE training!
What will I learn as part of the RESTORE training?
The training provides the unique opportunity to build upon existing professional skills and experiences and apply new methods and approaches to working with ideologically motivated individuals.
Quick facts about the training:
In 2019 the Outdoor Inclusion Coalition was founded to progress the pressing questions of diversity in the outdoor industry. Through collaborative approaches, the Coalition is at the forefront of making quality recreation experiences more accessible while reshaping urban recreation to be a pathway for greater exploration both professionally and recreationally.
From our backstory stems our mission: to support Pennsylvanians through programs dedicated to attracting, engaging, and retaining underrepresented populations in the outdoor industry.
Core Values
Collaboration: facilitating and encouraging multi-sector engagement to elevate the industry
Connection: elevating connections to people, place, and empowerment
Accessible Experiences: mitigating barriers to quality outdoor experiences while nurturing a sense of care for the outdoors
Activation: engaging the communities love for the outdoors while supporting the interest in sustainable outdoor developments
Equity & Inclusivity: continual progress and accountability towards a more just industry and outdoor community
The Outdoor Inclusion Coalition welcomes further engagement from residents, organizations, and governmental agencies. If you would like to receive additional information on the Coalition email marcus@theoic.org.
Outdoor Inclusion Coalition aims to make parks more accessible for all
Our Watershed: The hidden creek beneath us…
Water is constantly involved in any single stage of the Water Cycle. Be it rain, condensation, snow, or a flowing river, water is on the move. When it is moving, water always flows downhill.
In the beginning it may only be the trickle of a spring, coming up from the Groundwater. As you follow the flow of that crick over hollows and hills, that basin ridge outline is called a Watershed. Watersheds are the collection points for all the water as it flows off the land in a river system.
In an urban and developed city like Pittsburgh, those watersheds are still here, however they now are hidden below our feet, in pipes. We call them sewersheds, and they connect us, from the highest hill to the point of our three rivers. Sewersheds follow all the same rules as watersheds.
The Mon Water Project will focus on the watershed basin, flowing through a sewershed, along the Monongahela River.
Our Basin: The geography of our watershed…
The Mon Water Project is home to 4 Mile Run (4MR), a watershed/sewershed located four miles from the point in Pittsburgh on the Monongahela river. Both sewers and cricks in the Oakland, Greenfield, Squirrel Hill, Schenley Park, and Hazelwood neighborhoods flow through this pipe system. This pipe system is hidden beneath our feet, under roads, houses and sidewalks.
On dry days, the water in these pipes flows down under Greenfield Avenue, making its way through larger and larger pipes ,deep underground, to the Allegheny County Sewer Authority (ALCOSAN). That is our regional WasteWater Treatment facility. There it is treated and released in the Ohio River.
On Wet days, the entire system’s contents flow out into the Monongahela River through the M-29 outfall, a big discharge pipe, under Hazelwood Green. Similar, smaller unnamed streams and pipes are under and throughout Hazelwood. They discharge on wet days to individual outfalls counting up to M-40, near Glen Hazel. Combined, these systems make up the Monongahela peninsula of Pittsburgh and the Basin for the Mon Water Project.
Our Spring Water: The trickle of an Idea…
The MWP creates connections across governments, agencies, non-profits, businesses, and residents to direct resources to develop and implement integrated water resource plans based on One Water principles in 4MR and neighboring watersheds.
Our Groundwater: The foundation to build from…
MWP will use principles based on a philosophy known as One Water. One Water is the focus on all aspects of water, with equal value and importance, seeing the water cycle as continuous, and water systems as overlapping. This approach removes traditional water permitting “silos” and allows a community to address many issues at once.
Our Tributaries: Working together as a community…
Our work centers environmental justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion as we build community power for the management of our watersheds.
Our Floodwater: The challenges of urban restoration are substantial…
Over five years ago, Pittsburgh Water Sewer Authority was looking to address flooding, manage stormwater, rehabilitate old infrastructure, and decrease water pollution to the Monongahela river. They began the design, modeling, and implementation of the 4 Mile Stormwater Project. The project is hoping to improve the quality of life, protect property, and change the hydrology of a watershed affecting the lower half of the neighborhood in Greenfield, known as the micro-neighborhood “In the Run.” The Run historically floods with only a half inch of rainfall. It isn’t just any flooding, its manhole popping raw sewage that flows directly into homeowner basements, central streets, and neighborhood cornerstone businesses. Residents in The Run neighborhood have had to silently endure the issues for years. When the PWSA 4MR Stormwater Project was being developed, the residents of The Run worked hard to advocate for their community needs. With a unified voice they asked for real and last solutions.
Our Water. Our Work.
The Mon Water Project will build on the current ‘swell’ of resident and organizational movements that grew from the 4MR Stormwater Project. MWP will work to develop a unified strategy for ALL our water resources, partner to implement projects that protect the residents of our most vulnerable communities, and build an educated coalition of neighbors that advocate for science based solutions in our cricks and hollows.
The path forward is clear (unlike the muddy waters of the Monongahela) and with the support of New Sun Rising as a fiscal sponsor, starting in October 2022, The Mon Water Project is ready to officially launch. Follow us, join us, and support us as we flow towards a future that is truly sustainably alongside the Monongahela River.
Will you join us?
Watch as seven residents of western PA travel to the Gulf Coast region to explore what it looks like to live alongside a petrochemical plant. Take a journey along with them as they ask the hard questions and wrestle with the complex history of our past and issues facing Beaver County’s future.
Boom & Bust is produced by RiverWise, in association with New Sun Rising and the Genesis Collective, and created by filmmaker Christopher Padgett of Human City Creative. The project is completely self-organized and self-funded.
Many local community and environmental organizations play an important role in helping residents become more informed and inspired about the public health impacts of industry. While these efforts are very important, the Boom & Bust film was not conceived primarily as a public health, environmental science, or activist project. The goal of the film was to travel to Louisiana, witness what people were experiencing, and to share reflections on what we learned. During the screening events we will capture audience feedback in order to strengthen community connections and mobilize citizen action.
Thursday, July 28th, 2022 at 7 pm
Iron Horse Theater, 348 Maplewood Ave, Ambridge, PA 15003
Monday, August 8th, 2022 at 7 pm
Virtual Screening via Zoom, Register for the August 8th event
A conversation will be held after this screening for those who wish to participate.
Wednesday, August 10th, 2022 at 7 pm
The Tull Family Theater, 418 Walnut St., Sewickley, PA 15143, Register for the August 10th event
Concessions will be available for purchase from the Tull Theater during the screening.
Drinks and conversation are scheduled at the conclusion of this screening for those who wish to participate.
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2022 at 7 pm
Phipps Conservatory – Botany Hall, 1 Schenley Dr., Pittsburgh, PA 15213, Register for the August 23rd event
Drinks and a conversation are scheduled at the conclusion of this screening for those who wish to participate.
strengthening community movement by challenging prevailing narratives
The Millvale Ecodistrict represents the work and effort carried out by the Millvale Ecodistrict Collaborative, the Millvale Community, and evolveEA.
The Millvale Ecodistrict Collaborative consists of representatives from the Millvale Community Library, the Borough of Millvale, the Millvale Community Development Corporation (MCDC), and New Sun Rising. This coordinated team of people and organizations is committed to support and fulfill the Millvale Ecodistrict Plan.
The Millvale Ecodistict is led by In 2012, with the development of the Millvale Ecodistrict Pivot 1.0 Plan, the community came together to tackle three key issue areas: Food because of their status as a food desert, Water due to a frequent history of damaging floods, and Energy due the health and economic benefits.
Three years later, the community had been hard at work collaborating both internally as well as with regional partners and making significant progress on the community’s goals: With over 70% of the goals from the first iteration of their plan complete, the community turned its attention to the future by kicking off Millvale Ecodistrict Pivot 2.0 planning activities. Expanding its focus to Air because of the poor air quality in Allegheny County, Mobility due to lack of infrastructure for multimodal transportation, and Equity which ties the other quality of life priorities together to ensure fairness in access to these quality of life resources.
On October 26th, 2015, over 80 residents and community stakeholders came together to Imagine Millvale. Through the Millvale Ecodistrict Pivot 2 Plan, the community created the following vision statements which guide development activities:
Our purpose is to reduce poverty and build gender equity by providing networking, professional mentoring, and education to women experiencing economic hardship.
PARTICIPANTS: WIN will connect participants with an individual in the desired field to offer advice and assistance as it relates to personal and professional growth. Participants will receive a minimum of 1-year support and connection to professional experts in the areas of business and career mentoring, resume review and writing services, personal finance education and support, education about homeownership, and assistance in locating relevant resources such as insurance, professional attire, along with services such as career advancement opportunities.
All projects are charitable in nature and fall in line with section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status for our sponsors, donors, and grantors.