The EHJC, started in September 2005, is funded for four years by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences.  The three primary organizational partners are the Alton Park Development Corporation, Southside/Dodson Avenue Community Health Center, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. 

The long-term objective of the EHJC is to facilitate and strengthen neighborhood empowerment and leadership, ongoing information exchange, health promotion, and policy improvements in regard to environmental health and justice – with a focus on industrial and commercial chemical contamination -- in the AP/PW neighborhood of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Click here to see a pdf of the EHJC's annual report to the NIEHS for 2008. Appendices are located here (5 megabytes).

The Environmental Health and Justice Collaborative worked with youth at the Bethlehem Center's V-Team Literacy and Leadership Academy's summer program, holding classes on Youth Health & Wellness. It focused on better nutrition and youth fitness as it relates to environmental influences on their health. The EHJC and Bethlehem Center partnered with the Howard School of Academics and Technology, where the classes were held.

Alton Park/Piney Woods residents participated in a theater workshop that was held May 2 -4, 2008. The purpose of the workshop was to help community members talk about social and environmental justice issues that are important and to use theater to express these concerns to others in Chattanooga and beyond. The workshop was led by Mr. John Sullivan from the Environmental Health Sciences Center at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas.

On Monday, March 17, the EHJC hosted 19 Winthrop University students (Rock Hill, SC), on their "Alternative Spring Break," where they visited several different sites around Chattanooga to do volunteer work. One of their activities was to help the Calvin Donaldson Environmental Academy to assemble a greenhouse. The greenhouse will be used to support the elementary school's commitment to environmental education. Read more here.

Read the Chattanooga Times Free Press's weekly update by EHJC Community Correspondent, Falice Haire.