Conversations with Reggie Carrillo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Reggie Carrillo.

Hi Reggie, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My story starts in June during one of Arizona’s hottest summers. The week I was born it was 120 degrees. I’m a born and raised native to Arizona, I’m a product of the desert barrios, our public education system, of the resilience and fortitude that is needed to transform our communities. I grew up in a two income parent household. I had the privilege of traveling across the state to play sports, music, and to perform. We’d often perform for more affluent communities. As a kid, I noticed that their communities often seemed more cleaner, greener, and rich with resources. When I came back to my community, this often instilled a sense of shame and guilt in me. I often asked, why did their communities have what they had and ours lacked the abundance I had just seen. I was ashamed of living in the desert, of my cultura, and my own identity. In my middle school years, I lost my mom. She was diagnosed with Stage four lung cancer and the day before my birthday we were burying her in the ground. She was only 35. This formative traumatic event left me with unanswered questions.
As a kid, I didn’t have the language for what I was experiencing but I felt the impacts of the injustices of our barrios being the dumping grounds and the forgotten zone. My mother didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, so why was her health and many of my community members’ health impacted this way? When I went to college I finally received answers. I learned about the connection between our natural and built environments and our communities health disparities. Then when I became an educator full of bright curious middle schoolers, in the same community I also inhabit, their futures stretching out before them in the same environment I grew up in, that’s when it hit me. These middle schoolers weren’t just inheriting a planet in climate peril, but a community continuously bearing the brunt of environmental neglect and injustice. I knew I needed to act to transform their mindset just as mine was. I knew that I could leverage education as a pathway to transform our community in the same way education transformed my life and understanding of our planet, environmental inequities and our communities health burdens. I realized there was a need to teach youth about the environmental inequities endemic in their communities and about the ensuing climate crisis on our planet.

I’m Reggie Carrillo, That is why I Founded AZ(LAND). We’re not just another environmental nonprofit just focused on conservation. We’re a hyperlocal force, rooted in the very same soil of south phoenix, Arizona. We are educators, researchers, and proud inhabitants of these desert lands. We understand from lived experience that environmental injustice and climate change are compounding and intertwined in our Barrios. Our vision is a bold one, to co-create environmentally and racially just communities alongside those that have historically been underinvested in and yet possess an incredible untapped resilience and innovative spirit. AZ(LAND) believes that those closest to the problems are closest to the solutions. AZ(LAND) services the community through four program pillars. This includes an environmental focus on 1) education, 2) research and data access, 3) Future Building, lastly 4) Action and advocacy.

To date we have increased education about the abundance of the desert in the climate adaptation and mitigation solutions it offers us, we have worked to increase desert ecology canopy coverage in 21 residential households and have worked with over 10 educators, and 700+ students from the middle school to university level. In 2024 alone, we held 31 community events, engaged 5000 plus Sonoran desert residents, released our second publication on the barrio innovation approach, financially supported over 15 local emerging artists in raising awareness about environmental issues, and organized our two annual environmental resource fairs for the community. We have also recently installed our Shades of Resilience Structure, highlighting the impact of urban heat islands. This year we’re on track to continue and expand on that work. With your support, we know we can have a greater impact on the ensuing climate crisis. Now is the time to act with urgency. Every step we take as a collective community will help to ensure we leave a more hospitable and livable planet for our youth. With AZ(LAND) leading the way, you can start by making a recurring donation, sponsoring our organization or reaching out to collaborate with us. Your investment will help ensure we increase our collective capacity to address a global crisis as we work to scale to meet the environmental needs of our desert communities.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
This journey hasn’t been a smooth road, far from it. Founding AZ(LAND) has been an act of faith, resilience, and relentless commitment to my community, desert and planet. When I first started of course I didn’t have a roadmap or a safety net on how to build a business, especially a nonprofit one. I just had a vision that our deserts and barrios within deserved better. We are building an entity and doing work beyond just conservation and doing something entirely new and innovative which is an environmental justice and climate education nonprofit rooted in our lived experience living here in the desert, not in institutional wealth or privilege. For me, this meant navigating systems that weren’t built for me or us dealing with funding cycles that required existing infrastructure and partnerships that required capacity we hadn’t yet built when we first started, and skepticism from those who have a harder time imagining this work goes beyond tree planting and that the adaptation, mitigation, and reislience solutions exist in the desert barrios of Arizona.

There were moments when it felt like the work was too big and the resources too small. I’ve written countless grants that went unanswered, figuring out our first community programming and project events, and had to learn to stretch every dollar so that we could pay artists, educators, researchers, designers and community members fairly. During the pandemic, when the world shut down, our communities faced the brunt of both economic and environmental hardship. We had to adapt quickly turning from in person programming and working with educators to digital storytelling and working with the educators we support in the classroom as well as reimagining how to build our collective power to address compounding environmental and climate crises.

We’re still here, because those challenges have reminded us of our desert roots and resilience. They taught us to be resourceful, collaborative, and grounded in community. Every setback became a lesson in persistence. Today, AZ(LAND) stands as proof that visionary work can bloom from the desert, from our own gente. The road has been rough and it’s led us exactly where we need to be: rooted and ready to build a more environmentally just world.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My overall professional journey sits at the intersection of my passions which include 1) education, 2) environmental justice, and 3) technology. As the Founder and CEO of AZ(LAND) Fund I lead a multidisciplinary environmental and climate focused organization rooted in South Phoenix that reimagines how we build equitable, climate-resilient communities across our state and the Sonoran Desert. Through our Barrio Innovation Approach, we leverage local wisdom, research, design thinking, and art to co-create environmental and racially just solutions that are both community-driven and scientifically informed. Our work centers environmental education, climate research, green infrastructure, nature based solutions, arts and advocacy all centered on ensuring historically underinvested communities are part of shaping Arizona’s sustainable future.

In doing this work, I realize I specialize in turning vision into reality, understanding how systems impact our daily lives, and in bridging the education, technology, and sustainability sectors to distribute resources back to our communities and our environments we inhabit. My background as an educator and technology integration specialist taught me how to make complex ideas accessible and engaging for learners of all ages. These roles taught me the importance of technology to elevate our learning and access to resources as well as be more embedded in the community. In my next role, I was a Regional Program Manager for Microsoft Philanthropies TEALS. In this role, I scaled access to computer science education across Arizona, New Mexico, and rural California, managing partnerships with 25 districts and 60+ corporate volunteers. I learned how to scale up programs, manage budgets, build public and private partnerships which all came in handy when I stepped into running AZ(LAND) full time.

What I’m most proud of is reflecting on my journey, building AZ(LAND) brick by brick with my co-founder Monique Franco and our team. I’m in disbelief at how AZ(LAND) has grown from a idea and vision into a recognized environmental and climate community based organization. I’m in awe of we have gotten to partner and collaborate with as they always remind there is much to learn. The real pride comes from seeing local youth, artists, and families step into this space where we are aiding in cultivating all of our relationship with the desert, earth, and the compounding crisis on the barrios and planet that we call home.

What sets me apart is my both my personal and professional experiences and my identity as a native born Queer Chicano educator from Arizona’s barrios. I don’t just study environmental justice, I live this work. My spirituality and devotion to our planet and to each other, our beloved community is only getting more realized and strengthened. My work is driven by a deep belief, one that is backed by environmental justice scholarship, that those closest to the problem hold the most powerful environmental and climate solutions.

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
My advice is to start small. Break your vision down into the smallest steps/pieces. You don’t have to have everything figured out. Find your official or unofficial mentors that will help you and act as thought partners. As you go through this entrepreneurial journey stay rooted in your values, community, and trust your lived experience. You know why you have set off on this pathway. When I began AZ(LAND), I thought I needed to have everything figured out like the funding, the partnerships, the plan. What I’ve learned is that clarity and purpose comes from collective and collaborating actions and building community together. This has grounded me and nourished AZ(LAND). I have to also emphasize that I didn’t do everything alone. My initial vision was different from what the vision has grown to be now. The vision, the entity, the work has all been nurtured, adapted, improved, iterated again and again by our AZ(LAND) team and I and its all better because we come together and reflect and debrief. I’ll also add to build relationships. We are a small community based organization and relationship building has increased our capacity to do a whole lot more than if we went alone at this work. Lastly, ill leave with the words of Toni Morrison, You will be in positions that matter. Positions in which you can decide the nature and quality of other people’s lives. Your errors may be irrevocable. So when you enter those places of trust, or power, dream a little before you think, so your thoughts, your solutions, your directions, your choices about who lives and who doesn’t, about who flourishes and who doesn’t will be worth the very sacred life you have chosen to live. You are not helpless. You are not heartless. And you have time.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.azlnd.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/azlandorg/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AzLandorg
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/az-land-fund/
• Other: https://linktr.ee/azlnd

Image Credits
Headshot-Diego Lozano
All other Photos-AZ(LAND)