In Savannah, Georgia, community leader Beverlee Trotter is working to prepare young people and families for the challenges of both today and tomorrow — from climate impacts and natural disasters to emerging clean energy technologies. As executive director of Savannah Youth City and chair of a youth department with the NAACP, Trotter combines decades of experience in healthcare and youth outreach with a passion for environmental education and community resilience.
Read our conversation with Trotter to learn more about her work building resilience in Savannah’s underserved communities.
Describe the work you do in your community.
I’m the executive director of Savannah Youth City. We teach community emergency response. I work on several boards here in Savannah to try to make Savannah a better place for our future. So, as part of being a cert instructor, I teach emergency response as it relates to emergencies and natural disasters, and that’s our goal. So I do a lot of advocacy with climate control, about our environment, about young people just being successful and helping their families be successful. Along with working with Savannah Youth City, I also chair a youth department with the NAACP. I have about 30 years of healthcare experience, 25 years in youth outreach.
What inspires you to learn about clean energy technologies like electric vehicles (EVs)?
I have a 14-year-old. There’s no way I cannot learn about these things, because that’s going to be his world. So I have to learn. I have to be involved. I can’t be scared. I gotta put the old stuff behind me, and I gotta jump into what’s coming, which is the future. In order for me to keep up, to know what’s going on, and to be a part of this new world, I have to be brave. And part of being brave is being able to drive those cars, learn those cars, study those cars, study the future, and be a part of it. There’s no way around it.
I think it behooves us now to put it out there more so people can be ready for this change, because people are not ready. It takes somebody like me to step out there with our faces and say, you know, we’re in that era too. We’re scared, but we’re going to try, and we’re going to do it, and we want you to do it too.
What role does clean energy play in emergency response?
We live in that area here in Savannah, the South, where we pray things away, right? So I think we were used to praying things away, and then all of a sudden [Hurricane Helene] comes. Record-breaking, and in Savannah, there are a lot of drainage issues. There are a lot of things going on in Savannah that need to be repaired. They need to be talked about. And I think that we miss opportunities because we underestimate climate change. We don’t have the conversations that we need to have, especially in underserved areas.
When you think about the neighborhoods in our city that flood when it just rains, you know, they flood on an average rainy day. So what about when a hurricane comes? When Hurricane Helene came, it was so quick. It was so fast, but it did a lot of damage. We were not prepared. People were without lights. You had to deal with people not being emotionally resilient because they didn’t know what to do. You had to activate our entire community, who weren’t sure of what, who, when to do anything. You had to rely on psychological efforts that people weren’t trained in. We had our organization, Savannah Youth City, but we’re trained. We’re an emergency response. We knew how to respond to different things. Emergency Management knows how to respond to certain things, but in those areas where emergency responders cannot get to, at least for the first 72 hours, those areas are the areas that had to fend for themselves. At what point do we figure out what we can do so that doesn’t have to happen again?
Praying is good if that’s what you want to do. That’s your religion. But we have to use what God has given us to prepare more, take care of our streets, and repair what needs to be repaired accordingly.
What barriers prevent EVs from reaching marginalized communities?
I think the only challenge that we have with electric cars is affordability. I think other than that, I’d rather have an electric car because, you know, think about it. If it acts as a generator, that’s pretty powerful and beneficial to the community. I just think that it’s an affordability piece. And then you gotta remember they don’t see those vehicles. They don’t see them unless they’re on the highway.
Why is it important to talk about resilience and bring clean energy technologies to marginalized communities?
Unfortunately, sometimes they’re not in the room. They’re not going to hear the conversations. It’s almost like we’re talking to each other over and over and over again. You go to a meeting, and you see the same people. We go to another meeting, we see the same people, but the people that would need to hear those conversations, the people that need to be a part of it, the people that need to know about EVs, need to know this. And that is why we have to take the information to their communities, into their neighborhoods, because they are valuable. They’re just as important, and they’re the ones mostly affected by any climate change, any hurricane, any disaster. They’re the ones who tend to have to fend for themselves.
From emergency preparedness to environmental education, Beverlee Trotter’s work underscores the power of community-driven resilience. By bridging the gap between clean energy innovation and neighborhood engagement, she’s helping ensure that no one is left behind as Savannah — and the South — face a rapidly changing climate and energy future.
