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Verde, an environmental justice nonprofit based in outer Northeast Portland, has hired Candace Avalos as executive director.
Avalos will be replacing Tony DeFalco, who recently took the role of executive director with Latino Network.
Verde is an advocacy nonprofit for low-income Portlanders and was formed in 2005 in the Cully neighborhood. It was started by Hacienda CDC, an organization that supports low-income people, primarily in the Latino community, with securing affordable housing.
Verde builds and funds green energy and other environmental projects for low-income neighborhoods. Its leadership played a central role in the crafting and passage of Measure 26-201, which created the Portland Clean Energy Fund to fund green infrastructure for people of color.
"Verde's work of empowering the people to lead on the development of their neighborhood, by giving them agency to demand our communities are benefiting from investments in environmental infrastructure, will wake me up each day inspired and ready to continue raising Verde's impact in Cully and across Portland and Oregon," Avalos said in a statement.
Avalos has served on Oregon Gov. Kate Brown's Public Safety Training and Standards Task Force and the Portland Charter Review Commission. She has also spent eight years as an educator at Portland State University.
In addition, Avalos is chair of the Citizen Review Committee, which is dedicated to police accountability. She was reelected to this position earlier this week.
She'll officially begin her work as executive director for Verde on April 26.