A 20-year-old environmental activist and community leader, Diana Lopez is among one of the six recipients of the 2009 Brower Youth Award. Hosted by Earth Island Institute, the Brower Youth Awards are North America’s most prestigious prize for young environmental leaders.

Born and raised in San Antonio, TX, Lopez and her colleagues at the Southwest Workers’ Union created one of the first producing community gardens in San Antonio, transforming part of the East Side—a contaminated industrial area with almost no green space. The “Roots of Change Community Garden” functions as a place to build community leadership in this low-income neighborhood. Visitors have the opportunity to learn about organic gardening, nutrition, sustainable technology, and food security.

“I feel everyone deserves the right to a clean, healthy environment and your color or economic status should not depend on that,” said Lopez. “You work with other people who are fighting for the same thing: justice for people who, by systematic design, have more obstacles to overcome in their everyday life, most times it is low income people of color, just like me.”