ReGenesis

In 1998, Harold Mitchell Jr. founded the grass-roots environmental injustice organization ReGenesis. While experiencing his own personal undiagnosed health challenges, he found through research that the cumulative impact of abandoned industrial sites and landfills left in the community (later designated by EPA as Superfund/Brownfield sites) were the cause of many of the deaths in his family and the Arkwright/Forest Park Community.

ReGenesis received a $20,000 EPA SMALL grant and conducted a community-led planning process to guide the infrastructure needed to repair the harm and rebuild their community. Since then, ReGenesis has executed a plan of cleanup, redevelopment, revitalization. At this point, almost $300 million in federal, state, local, private sector, and foundation EJ investments have been leveraged for the project to benefit the community adversely affected by pollutants from industry and other sources

Now, ReGenesis is launching it’s second phase to complete the vision the community outlined while helping expand the ReGenesis model to lead the Just Transition. The ReGenesis Institute and a first-of-its-kind accelerator for communities like Spartanburg, in partnership with Justice Capital, to lead their own development and the Just Transition.