Humans of
SAVE THE BAY
Get inspired by the people making a difference, right here, in our community—and join us in building a healthier, more resilient Bay Area for generations to come.
Read on to meet the incredible humans of Save The Bay.
In times of uncertainty,
our community inspires us.
We find strength and resilience in you, the people that support our mission and work with us each day to protect our beautiful Bay. You remind us of what’s possible when we come together.
When you give to Save The Bay, you invest in your community, and a resilient future for San Francisco Bay.
Your gift directly supports our work to:
Advocate for smart climate policies that protect our region
Restore acres of wetlands that buffer communities and provide habitat
Educate the next generation of environmental advocates
Meet the humans of Save The Bay.
The stories shared here are just a few of the inspiring humans of Save The Bay–the remarkable community of donors, volunteers, and advocates that you are part of. Through these snapshots, we hope you’ll find the same sense of hope and inspiration that fuels our work. When you give to Save The Bay, you not only support our work—you are a part of the story.
David Lewis
Executive Director
One of my first projects was opposing a plan to expand the runways at SFO by filling in two square miles of the Bay. It wasn’t clear we’d win, but I knew that Save The Bay had to fight. That decision not only protected the Bay but helped the organization grow and proved that modern advocacy could lead to real victories.
As we look ahead, we know the Bay faces immense challenges. The incoming Trump administration has already made clear its intentions to slash environmental protections and strip away federal funding. We saw these same threats under the previous Trump administration. But we fought back—successfully—and we will do so again.
I’m confident in our ability to make progress here, in spite of federal rollbacks. California's environmental laws are among the strongest in the nation, and we’ve seen how effective Save The Bay’s partnership and leadership can be, thanks to your support and generosity.
Looking ahead, we can’t let up. We need to build even broader coalitions with businesses, labor organizations, underserved communities, and everyone who benefits from a healthy, resilient Bay Area.
There is so much more we have to do to ensure our region remains vibrant and protected—and I like our chances.
Hima Tammineni
Former Fellow
Story coming soon...
Terry Young
Board Member
Story coming soon...
Jesse McKeen-Scott
Restoration Program Manager
I think for Save The Bay, something that's really special is that—in so many of the other environmental education spaces that I was working, we were taking students away from their local community and driving them on a bus, or flying the plane to an environment and saying study this environment. Learn why you should protect it. This is a natural and beautiful space that you should really care a lot about. But I think for a lot of students it's like, why do I care about this space that I'm going to come to once in my life?
We're working so closely with communities that live a mile from the shoreline where we're working, or that could walk from their school to where we are, and that feels really special because it's not just saying, here's some foreign space that you should care about, but rather, this is your community.
Dianne Neal
Super Volunteer
After graduating, I worked seasonally in Yosemite and up in Oregon. I did many different jobs, but I finally decided to go back to school —as many of us nature lovers do. I became an elementary school teacher and for 22 years, I wove environmental education into every subject I taught. I would take my kids on lots of field trips, and I wanted them to understand science at an experiential level.
Now, as a volunteer, I feel like I’ve come full circle. Back then, I was the one receiving knowledge and inspiration from naturalists. Today, I’m on the other side. I feel like it's a time for me to give back something that I gained during those years. To be one of the ones imparting information on a different level.
It's so imperative, with climate change and with sea level rise, to hold up the banner and to be a beacon of light. Oftentimes people think they can't make a difference. And I think that showing the communities around the Bay that they can is going to be so important in the future.
When people ask what I do for my volunteer work, I always say “I save the Bay.” And I do it because I really believe in this work.
Nancy Strauch
Donor and Founding Member
It was the Army Corps of Engineers study that really got Sylvia, Kay, and Esther motivated. This study showed development filling a huge amount of San Francisco Bay so that all that was left was a river.
When you looked out at the Bay from the window in Kay Kerr’s house you could imagine what this would look like. The water would be gone, and there would just be this little stream out there. The rest would be garbage dumps and industrial development. I'm sure they were mortified when they thought about that because their idea was that the Bay was beautiful.
These were some very gracious ladies—very well spoken and extremely bright. They had ideas about what should happen in the world. And Sylvia in particular saw the Bay Area pretty much the way we see it now—completely accessible with shoreline parks, its beauty protected.
Discover more ways to give.
There are many ways you can make a gift to support a resilient Bay Area. You can give via Donor Advised Funds, stock, matching workplace gifts, or IRAs—all of which can be more tax-smart than giving cash.
You can learn about all of your giving options by visiting our Ways to Give page, or contacting Senior Leadership Gifts Officer Katie Reitter at kreitter@savesfbay.org.
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Save The Bay is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Gifts are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law. Our tax identification number is 94-6078420.