Kelley Green

Kelley Green, the aptly named environmentalist who was beloved by inner-city youths and the tree-hugging community for her philanthropic endeavors, died on Aug. 20 of uterine cancer. She was 57.
Green graduated from Wellesley College and George Washington University Law School. She clerked for U.S. District Judge Frank M. Johnson, then spent two years as a deputy associate attorney general. The money she received for her legal prowess was appealing, but Green needed more. So she moved to Boulder, Colo., and spent the next 20 years trying to save the environment.
She founded the environmental law and advocacy organization, the Land and Water Fund of the Rockies (now known as Western Resource Advocates) in 1989. When her parents died, she used her inheritance to found the Green Fund, which anonymously supports a variety of environmental and educational causes. In 1997, Green launched Earth Walk, a program that exposes fourth, fifth and sixth graders living in the inner-city to the wonders of nature.
“She went from a hard-nosed, hard-driving Carter-administration civil rights lawyer to a hard-nosed, hard-driving environmental lawyer and advocate. The natural world was her connection back to herself after her years back in Washington, D.C. She devoted herself to trying to protect it,” said Maggie Fox, deputy executive director of the Sierra Club.