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"What would you do if you thought the town where you were raising your family (and where two of the nation&amp;#x27;s oldest and dirtiest coal plants also lived) was making them sick? Would you, at just 21 years old, go knocking on doors, galvanizing community support, and fighting the good fight until those plants got shut down? That&amp;#x27;s what our girl Kim Wasserman did&amp;amp;#8212;and we&amp;#x27;re pretty impressed. Just take a look at her story: Shortly after her infant son was diagnosed with asthma, Wasserman formed a neighborhood coalition to petition the government and protest the operation of the coal plants. For more than 10 years, Wasserman&amp;#x27;s organization LVEJO (Little Village Environmental Justice Organization) fought to shut down the plants and improve the environmental quality of the neighborhood. LVEJO&amp;#x27;s efforts worked: In 2012, Midwest Generation, the power company behind the plants, shut down the two coal power facilities (it still won&amp;#x27;t accept responsibility for its role in the health problems among Little Village residents, but I guess you can&amp;#x27;t have everything). With the power plants shut down, Wasserman is now in the process of converting the space into parks for the community. This week, Wasserman was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize, giving her worldwide recognition for her grassroots efforts and $150,000 to put toward furthering the LVEJO mission. Though it&amp;#x27;s unconfirmed if Julia Roberts will be playing her in an upcoming Steven Soderbergh film, we can confirm that quality of life for the people of the Little Village neighborhood will only continue to get better thanks to Wasserman and LVEJO. And, for this, we applaud her. What are your thoughts on Wasserman&amp;#x27;s environmental efforts? Have you seen anything similar in your communities, or are you dedicated to any environmental causes? Let us know in the comments! Art: Tumblr "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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