Hello! My name is Madi Keaton and I am PULP’s newly hired Energy Justice Coordinator.
As an undergraduate at Messiah University, I was active in my campus’s racial reconciliation scholarship program, as well as our community garden, Human Rights Awareness group, and Earthkeepers club. These leadership and educational opportunities equipped me with the vocabulary and foundational knowledge in my grassroots activism for racial justice, economic justice, and environmental justice.
Following graduation with a B.S. in Environmental Science, I volunteered for a year with the Episcopal Service Corps. It was here that I formed my first partnership with PULP as I served at their Harrisburg office four days a week as a Legal Fellow. I performed legal research and edited testimonies to assist with casework as well as assisted with the creation of content for community advocacy work.
I spent the past year serving as an AmeriCorps VISTA, leading a project partnership between Messiah University and Catholic Charities of Greater Harrisburg to support refugee and asylee job access, resettlement, and ESL classes. During this time, I also worked part time as the coordinator for a statewide environmental coalition fighting for the protection of Pennsylvania’s state forests.
Through my new work, I look forward to supporting the leadership of low income and communities of color advocating for accessible, affordable, and clean energy across the state. Energy justice and Just Transition are impossible without the direction and guidance of the families who are least able to afford their energy bills and are most impacted by pollution and climate change. Having grown up in a low-income community as a biracial woman of Indigenous Asian descent, my own unique experiences of poverty and racism have rooted me in deep devotion to intersectionality and holistic partnership, and I am grateful to have been provided the opportunity to do this community-empowering work with PULP.
In my free time, you can find me exploring new hiking trails with my greyhound, Boomer, shopping at my local farmer’s market, or listening to Japanese rock.