What Brought Me Here: Jada La Fontaine - Connect The Dots
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19 Feb What Brought Me Here: Jada La Fontaine

Posted at 22:32h in Insights by
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Team member Jada shares how her background in environmental justice and education shapes her commitment to people-centered engagement at Connect the Dots. 

What work were you doing before you arrived at Connect the Dots?

A woman in a hooded winter coat gestures while speaking to a small group gathered for an environmental community tour in Middle East Baltimore during light snowfall. The group, bundled in coats and hats, listens attentively. Parked cars and brick rowhouses line the street.

Residents of Middle East Baltimore lead a neighborhood environmental tour, sharing lived experiences regarding local environmental challenges and opportunities along the route. The tour, coordinated by Jada, brought local leaders together to discuss environmental conditions, neighborhood history and relevant grant opportunities to support residents working to address issues in their built environment.

Before joining Connect the Dots, my work centered on environmental justice, public education, and supporting everyday people in engaging with decisions that shape where they live. My earliest professional experience was at the Overbrook Environmental Education Center (OEEC) in West Philadelphia, where I supported environmental education programs for youth and adults. There, I spent time thinking about and working within the intersections between the built and natural environments, public health, and people’s everyday lived experiences.

In addition to education programming, I supported green workforce development initiatives and science projects focused on air quality monitoring and lead safety. Working in the same neighborhood where I grew up was especially formative because it made clear how land use, infrastructure, and environmental decisions accumulate over time, particularly when local voices are not meaningfully included in decision-making.

In later roles, I continued working to connect residents, especially those who have been historically under-engaged, to civic and public planning processes related to environmental and land use issues that shape their quality of life. Through these experiences, I saw firsthand how public participation functions within larger institutional systems and the opportunities to improve it. It reinforced the importance of designing engagement efforts that are accessible, welcoming, and genuinely impactful. Together, these roles solidified my interest in including all voices in planning, rectifying imbalances in our built and natural environments, and public decision-making.


What drew you to Connect the Dots?

A participant stands at the front of a room, pointing to a large projected aerial map of a Philadelphia intersection during an environmental justice workshop. The slide reads, “Now It’s Your Turn: A major intersection in Philadelphia needs your help.” The participant gestures to the map while holding a paper, engaging in an interactive exercise to identify opportunities for greening and street improvements.

Participant engaged in an exercise on planning neighborhood greening opportunities in Philadelphia designed and led by Jada.

What drew me to Connect the Dots was how clearly its mission aligns with my own values. Historical and present day imbalances in our built environment reveal that meaningful public participation has long been an overlooked and undermined element of democracy. Thoughtful public engagement plays a critical role in making that possible.

I was already familiar with Connect the Dots through previous professional experiences and had a deep appreciation for the team’s creative, people-centered approach to engagement. My professional experiences have revolved around working with neighborhoods that have faced long histories of systemic racism, environmental harm, and disinvestment. Central to all of these experiences is a belief that places are healthier—environmentally, socially, and economically—when people are invited to participate in decision-making processes that shape where they live. CtD’s focus on helping public agencies strengthen how they engage people, rather than treating engagement as a checkbox, really resonated with me. The organization’s values and approach felt like a natural extension of the work I’ve been drawn to throughout my career.

 

 

What do you hope to grow in, expand more of the work that Connect the Dots does or that you do specifically now that you’re here?

A woman wearing a tan cap leans over a table at an outdoor community event, speaking with a young boy in a green cap who is holding a red toy blaster. On the table is a colorful prize wheel, clipboards with sign-in sheets, flyers, and a green bottle. They are set up under a tent on a grassy area with trees, parked cars, and other people in the background.

Jada connects with neighbors at CommUNITY Day 2025, sharing information and gathering feedback in support of the Roosevelt Boulevard: Route for Change project through interactive activities and conversation.

Now that I’m here, I’m excited to continue deepening my understanding of public engagement as a discipline, and to help expand how engagement strategies are designed to respond to different groups, issues, and contexts. I’m particularly interested in growing the public education side of our work, especially around environmental, land use, and infrastructure topics, and in contributing to creative approaches that truly meet people where they are.

Being part of a team that values collaboration, curiosity, and continuous learning has been incredibly affirming. I’m excited to keep building my skills while supporting and growing alongside the work that Connect the Dots does.

 

 

 

Jada is a Senior Associate with 5 years of experience in project coordination and grant management, specializing in urban planning and environmental justice projects.