Through support from H-E-B, EarthShare Texas hosts the Green Leaders Fellowship annually: a program designed to cultivate emerging environmental professionals through hands-on experience, strategic mentorship, and mission-driven placements across the state.
This blog series will highlight the work of our 2025 Fellows, showcasing the research, storytelling, and advocacy they contributed to their individual host organizations. From policy analysis to community engagement, each fellow brought a unique lens to the environmental challenges facing Texas today.
Fellow Spotlight: Molly Barkis
Host Organization: Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter
Focus Area: Climate Storytelling & Digital Media Strategy
As a 2025 Green Leaders Fellow, Molly Barkis joined the Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter with a clear vision: to reimagine climate communication through stories of hope, resilience, and community. A senior at Trinity University at the time and studying Communications and Sustainable Business Strategy, Molly brought a passion for connection and a belief in storytelling as a catalyst for change.
Molly presenting during the 2025 Green Fellows Showcase Event
From Heat to Hope: A Podcast Miniseries
Recognizing a gap in emotionally-driven climate storytelling—and a support base skewing older—Molly developed a four-episode podcast titled From Heat to Hope. Her goal: inspire action and expand Sierra Club’s reach to younger, more diverse audiences by centering lived experiences across Texas. Here’s a look at what each episode covers.
From Heat to Hope Episode One
In episode one, we meet Dr. Eileen McGinnis, a scholar, advocate, and mother, who was raising her three-year-old son when a stark report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the IPCC – warned that we had just over a decade to limit the most catastrophic effects of global warming. To listen, click here.
From Heat to Hope Episode Two
In episode two, we meet Jordan Goodrich, the Communications Manager for the Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter. And through her work, her words, she’s building bridges between people and the planet, one story at a time. To listen, click here.
From Heat to Hope Episode Three
Dr. Isabel Araiza is the Assistant Professor of Sociology, Coordinator for the Mexican American Studies Program at Del Mar College, and co-founder of For the Greater Good. A woman who reminds us that change doesn’t come all at once. It comes in ripples. It comes when ordinary people refuse to look away. To listen, click here.
Key Deliverables Included:
- Original narration, editing, and sound design across four episodes
- Full transcripts and accessibility features for inclusive engagement
- Custom graphics and teaser clips for social media promotion
- Strategic collaboration with Sierra Club’s marketing team
Milestones Completed:
- Interviewed local climate storytellers across Texas
- Scripted and storyboarded each episode with attention to tone and emotional pacing
- Built a full audio production workflow from scratch
- Coordinated a launch and marketing plan with timeline-based goals
“Climate communication doesn’t have to rely on fear to be powerful,” Molly shared. “By centering stories of resilience and personal connection, we can make the crisis feel both real and solvable.”
To listen to the podcast, please click here.
Recommendations from Molly for Climate Communicators
- Lead with hope. Uplift and inform while acknowledging real concerns.
- Diversify your audience. Use accessible, engaging formats to reach younger, bilingual, and digitally connected communities.
- Make it personal. First-person narratives are more relatable—and more likely to inspire action.
Molly now drives actionable and impactful climate resilience strategies across all business lines as a part of the Resiliency Team with GFT, a national infrastructure and environmental solutions firm formed by the merger of Gannett Fleming and TranSystems. She’s continuing to apply her systems thinking and communications skills in a mission-driven context.
The application to apply for our next cohort is currently open, closing October 5th.
Want to be a change maker? Or know someone who is? Tell them about the program!
This blog post is the first in a series from EarthShare Texas dedicated to highlighting our 2025 Green Fellows’ achievements.
