(John Morales) - Champion for The CLEO Institute

I will match every contribution you make up to the stated goal. The CLEO Institute, founded in 2010, is important to me because it is the only nonprofit, nonpartisan statewide organization in Florida exclusively dedicated to climate education, advocacy, and engagement. CLEO provides critical education on the science, the urgency, and solutions of the climate crisis with a climate justice lens to empower people to join the movement. Building community resilience and adaptive capacity require an informed, engaged, and prepared public. Therefore, CLEO works with governmental, business, academic, and community leaders to advocate for long-term and inclusive solutions.

Programs include, but are not limited to:

•CLEO Speakers Network: training people to become confident climate speakers

•Empowering Resilient Women: connecting the dots for women in underserved communities on how to be better prepared for extreme weather events, including food security.

•Climate Resilient Schools: working with high school students and teachers to bring climate, justice, and civic engagement into the curriculum

•GenCLEO Youth Network: supporting a network of young people who have successfully gotten eight municipalities to declare a climate emergency.

•Statewide Campaigns: activating statewide campaigns like the Melting Florida statues to increase climate crisis awareness

CLEO's top-down, bottom-up approach is empowering Floridians to take action. Annually CLEO engages over 15,000 people through programs, trainings, webinars, etc. Thousands of people we educate and engage have amplified climate education and advocacy in their communities, making our ripple effect immeasurable. Our free community programs continue to receive more participants every year; programs requiring multiple workshops and certifications are also seeing higher retention rates. CLEO relies heavily on annual grants and is grateful for the individual donors that can help support our programs and help us continue our work in creating a more just, safe, and healthy future for all!