For Climate Resolve’s then fellow, Lia Cohen, who co-led the park’s planning process with residents, letting the project stop here was not an option. Lia and her team were committed to those who had put years of work into imagining a better future for their community. Three years later, Climate Resolve and their partners at the Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation were awarded a grant from the Extreme Heat and Community Resilience Program, which was the opportunity they’d been waiting for. The grant is being used to implement resiliency improvements at the Baldwin Hills Parklands and two other heat-vulnerable L.A. County parks, providing urgently needed cool surfaces, hydration stations with clean water, and shaded recreation areas to the communities.

As community engagement lead for the Baldwin Hills site, Lia, who worked with communities in South L.A. to envision what their climate resilient park could be, now gets to educate residents about what it will be. She’s doing this by planning events in 2026 that generate excitement about the park and increase awareness of its new features in a fun and engaging way. This approach was applied by Lia and her team in the project planning phase through their Camping 101 and Emergency Preparedness classes. She found that these interactive classes helped climate change and extreme heat information resonate more with community members than a presentation would - and when more people know about community resources, more can benefit.

Building trust is a critical part of designing community engagement events in South L.A., where institutions have often worked against the interests of residents. For Climate Resolve, this trust is developed through partnerships with local resident-led organizations that help spread the word, develop relevant project information and activities, and ensure event sites are accessible and safe. Lia stresses that these partnerships are what make equitable climate work possible. The trust and relationships Lia and her team have built, allow Climate Resolve to better understand what communities who suffer from social and environmental injustice need to thrive, and what state policies need to be advocated for.

Climate justice advocates like Lia show how beneficial long-term partnerships can be for communities most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Organizations working together with residents to identify and address the effects of injustice, is what makes transformation a possibility.