For local brothers Free and Raven Borsey, a $100,000 prize offers the opportunity to focus on environmental advocacy — and to contribute to a Lummi Nation youth program that gave them valuable lessons as teenagers.
The annual Bullitt Prize, an award for environmental leaders under 35 from underrepresented groups, is nearly two decades old. Washington Conservation Action took on the mantle of giving out the prize this year from the Bullitt Foundation, an influential nonprofit that has long planned to stop giving out grants this year.
The twins, 26, are both subject matter experts at Children of The Setting Sun, an Indigenous environmental and social justice advocacy and education organization, meaning they take charge on projects in their area of expertise. Free tackles environmental issues, while Raven is the tribal sovereignty and leadership expert.
They will receive the Bullitt Prize in a formal ceremony on Dec. 6.
Recipients can use the grant, distributed over two years, for a wide range of purposes, including to support themselves and their education.
“It’s not anything other than investing in the young people,” said Zachary Pullin, communications director for the conservation nonprofit.
Some of the prize money will go toward helping the brothers restart the Lummi Youth Canoe Family. The program, which took young people on canoe journeys hundreds of miles long, shuttered in 2019.
Free Borsey remembers a trip he took with the group to Bella Bella, home to the Heiltsuk Nation in British Columbia, as particularly formative.
The 38-day journey, about 650 miles long, Borsey said, challenged the young paddlers “mentally, spiritually, physically, emotionally” as they stopped at different tribes on the way north.
Every day was something new. At one point, the group was caught in a torrential downpour for five days, he recalled. Everybody huddled together under a tarp in wet clothes, their tents full of water.
The team came out of it with “experience and vision,” he said, and exposure to the natural world. It was a turning point for Borsey, where he began to feel connected to the cultural elements of the canoe journey he hadn’t been interested in before.
His brother, Raven, was not available for an interview.
The brothers will be able to pass their knowledge and experience on to a new generation when they start up the canoe family again. They intend to raise money for the program through fundraising, as well as using some of their Bullitt funds.
However, Borsey is clear he doesn’t want the prize “to turn into a grant-writing challenge.” The award’s mission is “to help uplift young conservationists in their efforts,” he said, and he wants to stay true to that.
Pullin echoed that sentiment.
“It’s really about making sure that the people that we’re trying to bring up and that are coming up as emerging leaders have the resources they need to be supported so that they can continue growing,” he said. “And that there’s no obstacles to that.”
Sophia Gates covers rural Whatcom and Skagit counties. She is a Washington State Murrow Fellow whose work is underwritten by taxpayers and available outside CDN's paywall. Reach her at sophiagates@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 131.
