By Nicole Gaines
Chair, N.C. Chapter of Sierra Club
Readers: Nicole Gaines, a longtime leader from our Piedmont Plateau Group, was elected Chapter Chair this January. This is the first in a series of her reflections on our work and priorities as we move along a broader, more inclusive path toward environmental and social justice.
The psychologist and author Adam Grant wrote last year that confidence is a measure of how much you believe in yourself. Evidence shows that's different from how much you believe in your methods.
Grant also said that humility is often misunderstood; it's not a matter of having low confidence. One of the Latin roots of humility means "from the earth." It's about being grounded - recognizing that we're flawed and fallible.
It has taken some time to absorb the significance of my new position in volunteer leadership at the North Carolina Chapter of Sierra Club. As the Covid pandemic took over our lives in the form of sequestration and social distancing, and in the pervasive sorrow that comes with losing loved ones, I found myself questioning the motives of our chapter leadership in their decision to nominate me as chair.
But before I tell a story of an uneasy transition in this series of blog stories, I must speak to why this is the perfect time for my leadership as chair of our North Carolina Chapter. Call it a personal offering: As the first Black woman to chair the N.C. Chapter of Sierra Club, I owe colleagues and allies an ecopedagogic expression of what it means to lead and follow the lead for our Sierra Club mission.
I, like most volunteers who come to the Sierra Club late in life, went in search of a new "thing." That new thing for me was an opportunity to see with new eyes the nature that exists beyond my backyard. I expected to meet people not regularly seen in my existing social sphere. The new thing spoke to my curiosity in the form of a postcard - yes, a good old-fashioned postcard - that someone had politely left on a counter at a place I cannot even remember.
It was the week before the new year of 2015. "Join us for our New Year’s Day Hike!" the postcard gleefully proclaimed. It was a picture of folks walking a foot trail between tall white oak, sweet gum and maple trees, a woodland of barren branches and brown leaves blanketing the forest floor.
While many would say these folks are crazy to be out in the cold, I saw nothing but newness. The anticipation of looking for new shoots of green grasses. The buds of dogwoods beginning to open, but not just yet.
To me, it was chance to see the new year in a new light - especially after terrible years before. By the time I signed up for the hike, I had been in a spiraling depression, remnants of transition from a job loss nearly two years prior. At age 50, I had seen nothing worth celebrating until that point.
As it turns out, that outing was a qualifying hike for the hike leader. He was knowledgeable about all the surroundings; he quietly told us about the preserve and its significance to the area, and showed us the harm beavers have on lakes - this lake in particular - as he pointed to the bases of several small trees that had been gnawed to a point like sharpened pencils.
I had never seen a tree felled by beavers before. The beavers dammed the lake, and it changed the flow of water throughout the woodland. Our stop to observe the damage gave me time to catch my breath. I was embarrassed that I was the only one breathing audibly. I was surrounded by people in their 60s and 70s, for pete’s sake, yet I was the only one catching my breath in the most discreet fashion possible.
Yet, it was then I knew that I was where I wanted to be: among these people who saw the quietness and freshness of the forest as something to fight for.
Of the ensuing years, some came and went with little significance while others were life-altering. I became an educator at the local community college, and later found myself in graduate school. But it was my activity in Sierra Club that remained a constant in my career in volunteerism. I served as a group secretary, then as vice-chair and, after the Piedmont Plateau Group's chair moved out of North Carolina, I was elected to assume his role.
In addition to the Sierra Club, I was by 2016 on the leadership team of the North Carolina Climate Justice Summit. In January 2017, I was a volunteer coordinator for the first Women’s March that saw a record 5,000 marchers in Greensboro, along with huge turnout all over the world. A few weeks later, I was co-leading a cadre of men and women to Washington D.C. for the People’s Climate March. And in 2018, I was nominated to serve on our city’s Sustainability Council through 2023. These opportunities offered exposure: confident, humility-building moments that continue to fuel leadership in conservation, environmentalism, equity and justice.
Through my experiences in nature and the bonds established with those who share the passion of protecting the places, spaces and people we love, I hope to bring confidence and humility to this leadership role, recognizing that we are all flawed and fallible, but united in the belief that we - that the planet - deserve better. In coming posts I will ask you to consider your view, and our shared vision, of what makes a more equitable, just environment.
My story is not unique, and yours may be more similar than you realize. Our relationships as Sierra Club volunteers and supporters, along with our staff and elected leadership, will help us build on a mission that is still growing and developing as we enter the Club's 129th year and the Chapter's second half-century.
Together, let's choose our road toward a better world for all.