As the Executive Director of The Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans (TWC), Jessica Dandridge has dedicated her life to community advocacy. Born and raised in New Orleans, she started her career at 16 years old after Hurricane Katrina fighting for equity and justice for black youth and communities. Today New Orleans is facing its biggest risk and opportunity, water. To face these challenges, she focuses on community-led adaptation and mitigation as the core to water justice and climate resiliency strategies. In 2019 she realized that the movement to make New Orleans climate-resilient was more than engineering and science, it was also about education. Since 2019, Jessica and her team teach the true history of the relationship between climate, water, and New Orleans, so we can respect the contributions and create solutions.