Clean Air Holly Springs
We value clean air, knowing that it's required for the health of our environment, public health, and the economic health of our town.
Clean Air Holly Springs aims to promote a healthy breathing environment for our local community.
Meet Our Team
Rachel Woods
Co-founder & Community Outreach; NC Climate Ambassador
Rachel is a teacher and small business owner. Her two active teens require fresh air for their healthy growth and development. Rachel is particularly interested in habitat conservation and knows all living beings deserve healthy air to breathe.
As a NC Climate Ambassador, Rachel is trained on climate, the health impacts associated with climate change and on advocacy strategies regarding climate solutions.
Kristina Natt och Dag
Co-founder & Business Outreach
Tina works with education and training in the medical community and parents two beautiful, active children who she hopes can grow up in a healthy environment. They have a cute dog.
A native Swede, Tina grew up in a world where respecting the environment was important and things like idling is regulated by law to ensure the quality of air.
Our Assistants
Taylor Romeo
Environmental Advocacy Intern
Taylor is a senior at Holly Springs HS. She has been with us for a full year now working on our social media campaign and recruiting volunteers and this year will be expanding her list of responsibilities! She is considering a career in the environmental field.
Julia Janosko
Community Outreach Assistant
Julia is a graduate from Holly Springs HS and a freshman at NCSU studying industrial engineering and sustainability while working with the Citizen Science organization on campus, go Wolfpack! Her expertise is social media and graphics; her passion for the environment and her close ties to equally impassioned teenagers make her a valuable addition to our team.
Aylin Bal
Business Outreach Assistant
Aylin attends UNC Chapel Hill majoring in environmental studies and minoring in public policy. She started with CAHS as a pledge push volunteer and wanted to make a bigger impact by officially joining our. She is very passionate about the environment and sustainability and hopes to see bigger things with CAHS soon!
Our Social Media Interns
Gabby Doran
Gabrielle Doran
A senior at Holly Springs HS, Gabby hopes to study business and environmental studies in college. she hopes to educate people on social media about how we can come together as a community to help the environment.
Mia Ryan
Mia is a senior, women's varsity soccer player at at Holly Springs HS. She enjoys time at the gym, astronomy and and loves spending time outdoors, which is one reason why she is super excited to be a member of Clean Air Holly Springs!
Big News! We were featured on The Holly Springs Deep Dive podcast. Listen to the story of how we got our start in 2021 and our plans for 2022!
Why Clean Air Matters in Holly Springs, NC
We live in an amazing community with so much to be proud of! We have incredible access to public services. We have choices in schools and have rich opportunities for work and play. Our healthcare resources, our public library, farmer's market and small town community feel explains our tremendous growth in population over the last decade. But with growth comes changes to our natural resources; resources we need to commit to protect. Clean air is just one of those resources.
Our population growth has encouraged an expansion in business and industrial development as well as residential development which has prompted the need for expanded town roads and highways and a tremendous loss of tree cover. As of 2019, our town limits house more than 11,000 individual households, and more than 70% of those households own 2 or 3 cars each. Close to 79% of residents commute alone to work, with an average commute time of 25 minutes; less than 9% of Holly Springs commuters carpool. Less than 1% of our residents walk to or from work. Our car-centric "bedroom community" has impacts on our air quality.
This should matter to all of us. The most vulnerable to poor air quality are people under the age of 18 and over the age of 60. And those demographics make up over 40% of our population. But we can't overlook the health impaired residents among us, between the ages of 19 and 59 years of age, whose health and wellbeing is also threatened by poor air quality.
Citation: “Holly Springs, NC Census Place.” Data USA, datausa.io/profile/geo/holly-springs-nc#demographics.