The Tribute to Change brings together people who care about social justice in the Philadelphia region to connect with each other, to celebrate recent victories, and to raise money for the next chapter of the story of grassroots change.

The 2025 Tribute to Change was held on June 26, 2025.The theme was “Turning the Tide: Climate Justice and the Fight for Liberation.”We celebrated the individuals and organizations working on the front lines of the climate crisis to create a world that sustains us all—from access to clean air and water, to holding corporations and policymakers responsible for the climate crisis accountable, to ensuring those most impacted by climate change have a seat at the table in decision-making for their communities.  

Meet the 2025 honorees

Zulene Mayfield
Paul Robeson Lifetime Achievement Award
This award is given to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to social change throughout their lifetime.

“So go put your boots on, because ours are already on.” Zulene Mayfield is built for this—born and raised in Chester, Pennsylvania, Zulene has spent the last 30+ years organizing for climate justice in her hometown, about 45 minutes outside of Philadelphia.

In 1992, after buying a house across the street from what was dubbed a “trash to steam” facility, Zulene rallied her neighbors to form Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living (CRCQL, or, “Circle”) to organize and demonstrate against pollution caused by the Covanta (now Reworld) trash incinerator, the largest of its kind in the nation.

CRCQL was a response to everything the residents of Chester could see, hear, and smell. Zulene and CRCQL are leading the charge not only against Reworld, but also against every other industrial attack on Chester and their community along the Delaware River. It’s textbook environmental racism: As a low-income community that is majority Black and other people of color, Chester is all too frequently seen by corporations as a target to site such facilities and skimp on safety, multiplying the risks to residents’ health.

Zulene has defended her hometown against proposed plants to burn tires, the largest pet crematory in the country, and facilities burning contaminated soil, and is currently mass organizing against a proposed liquefied natural gas facility.

Thanks to Zulene’s and CRCQL’s efforts, Chester has defeated numerous waste-processing facilities, including shutting down Pennsylvania’s largest processor of medical waste in a fight that went all the way to the state Supreme Court in 1996, eventually leading Pennsylvania to create the Office of Environmental Justice in 2004.

“We’re so concerned about climate change, but don’t give a damn about environmental racism. It’s a contradiction to me.” Facing this contradiction head-on is what has made Zulene’s commitment to climate justice so urgent, and so necessary. Her vision of climate justice protects those who suffer most from accelerating climate disasters and corporate cruelty.

“CRCQL has put polluting industries on notice that Chester is not where they want to come,” Zulene says. If they choose to try it, there is a force that will greet you at the gates.”

Talia Young
Trailblazer Award
This award is given to an outstanding leader in community organizing who has helped to pave the way for others. 

Talia Young is interested in fish as a vehicle for justice. “Justice and equity are an issue for people who are harvesting fish, and an issue for people who are eating them,” she says. In 2018, alongside Tasha Palacio, Talia founded and currently runs Fishadelphia, a community-supported fishery and organizing initiative that provides fresh local seafood from the New Jersey shore via subscription to culturally and economically diverse neighborhoods in Philadelphia.

Committed to paying fairly for local, sustainable food, Fishadelphia connects working-class fishing communities with communities of color whose culinary traditions value the local fish and seafood that mainstream markets overlook. Talia, who is Chinese American, comes from one such tradition. Jellyfish, scallops, shrimp, clams, abalone, squid, whole fish, fish heads: these were a daily presence in her childhood meals. And growing up in New York City and Philly, she knew Black communities and other communities of color made whole dinners out of this seafood. But the limited range of seafood in most American restaurants and grocery stores means that some fish caught on the New Jersey shore never reach local buyers, while much seafood is imported to cater to narrow corporate tastes. Fishadelphia aims to change that.

With a PhD in Ecology and experience teaching high school science and college environmental studies, Talia likes asking hard questions. “We literally connect communities with a supply chain. But what else ties them together?” Through Fishadelphia, young people have visited the docks where fisherfolk bring their catches to land, seeing the labor behind food. Some discover their families’ own fishing heritage. They’ve swapped ocean stories and recipes to connect, expand cooking repertoires, and imagine food systems that respond to community needs.

As climate change causes fish to move, Fishadelphia adapts to an evolving definition of “local food” that requires figuring out how to responsibly fish and distribute seafood amidst these changes. Young reminds us, “Climate is changing the landscape, but increasing human connection is what’s going to increase our resilience.”

Ella Israeli
Emerging Leader Award
This award is given to an individual who is beginning to make their mark as a community organizer. 

From New York to Philly, New Orleans to Palestine, everywhere she’s been Ella Israeli has led movements for change. Currently a policy fellow at Philly Thrive, Ella is part of the group that successfully organized for the closing of the largest and oldest oil refinery on the east coast. In her position, she builds power by organizing community members toward policy change and improving shared infrastructure in their neighborhoods. One of her most crucial missions is ensuring that all Philadelphians have safe, climate-resilient, weatherized homes. “If long-term residents aren’t able to stay in their neighborhood that they fought for, and aren’t able to enjoy the clean air and soil because they’re being pushed out due to gentrification, or they have mold in their house—that’s not the climate justice we’re fighting for.”

She began organizing in college with anti-apartheid movements on the ground in Israel and Palestine and within the American Jewish community. Inspired by her work in Palestine, Ella began to devote time and effort to climate justice while living in New Orleans, where, on the Gulf Coast, she was faced with increasing risk of climate disasters. There she worked with the Sunrise Movement, the youth-led organization finding solutions to the climate crisis.

Ella educates policymakers and communities on climate disaster relief and climate resilience hubs, helping to build knowledge and power toward achieving housing security. While organizing for the statewide Whole Home Repairs legislation as part of their anti-displacement and anti-gentrification mission, Philly Thrive also successfully lobbied the city for $5 million in its budget toward the Built to Last green home repairs program in 2024. This year, their Safe Healthy Homes campaign is focused on achieving home repairs for both low-income homeowners and renters. Ella says, “We had people where it’s their first time speaking at City Council. Afterward, they’re like, ‘I did it! We’re going to win.’”

POWER Interfaith
Victory is Ours Award
This award is given to a community organization, union, or campaign that has advanced movements for racial and economic justice. 

POWER Interfaith shows what’s possible when you cultivate strength in numbers. Launched in 2011, POWER brings together more than 50 congregations encompassing a multi-racial, multi-generational, and multifaith constituency of more than 30,000 people across Philadelphia. POWER Interfaith organizes for people and the planet, not profit, and leads communities in demanding that public utilities move away from fossil fuels, pollution, and carbon towards a solidarity economy that works for everyone.

“Climate issues [can] seem irrelevant to many folks, given the fact that a whole lot of folks are making $7.25 an hour,” POWER’s executive director, Rev. Dr. Gregory Edwards, says. “When you’re making $7.25 an hour, chances are you got two and three jobs you’re trying to parcel together, just to make a livable wage. And so, we’re organizing in communities where clean air is not necessarily their first priority.”

The group’s organizing strategy bridges this gap. POWER’s “PGW Just Transition” campaign aims to integrate affordable bills, renewable and clean energy, fair labor, health, and safety in Philadelphia Gas Works’s practices, as a public utility owned by the people. POWER advocates for clean energy with the Public Utility Commission, the public institution regulating utilities in the state, and mobilizes to keep the Philadelphia Gas Commission’s budget process open to the public.

Campaigns like these counter environmental racism and unchecked profit with the common values that unite POWER’s faith communities. They lift up a vision of climate justice for the people, particularly people of color and low-income communities most acutely affected by a changing climate.

“Organizing allows people to be seen,” Rev. Dr. Edwards points out. “When we see people, we show up differently. We can change the social conditions of the world in which the people we love live.” And in showing up, POWER activates a livable future for all of us.

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