Waterspirit is overjoyed to host Joys of the Sea 2025 at the Shore on March 21 at 4:30 pm. Join us for food, community, and a truly memorable evening experience to further honor and protect water.
About this event:
This special event will include delicious plant-based food, an exciting silent auction, and stunning ocean views. Joys of the Sea will feature remarks from the 2025 Suzanne Golas Spirit of Water Award winner, Maya K. van Rossum, Delaware Riverkeeper and Founder of the Green Amendments movement.
We are grateful to our sponsors:
The Thomas Berry Foundation, Ann Marie and Robert Reardon, Kathryn and Robert Chambers, Sue Smith, and Eleanor Swanson.
Please click here to learn how to sponsor this beautiful event.
Interested in reaching thousands of water protectors by donating an auction item? Reach out to water@waterspirit.org to learn more.
Accessibility:
The venue has an elevator for anyone with mobility issues. We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals, including individuals with disabilities, to engage fully. To request an accommodation or for inquiries about accessibility, please email water@waterspirit.org or call 732-923-9788.
About Our Honoree:
Maya is the Founder and Leader of the national Green Amendments movement and serves as the Delaware Riverkeeper and leader of the 4 state Delaware Riverkeeper Network. She is honored to do this work realizing there is so much to do if we are to save our environment, protect our communities and truly end environmental racism.
Inspired by a major success Maya and her organization led in Pennsylvania to breath legal life into a long-ignored environmental rights amendment, she founded the National Green Amendments movement in 2014. In 2017, recognizing the need for a national platform from which to deliver her message, she published her award-winning book, and founded the Green Amendments For The Generations organization which secured nonprofit status in 2019. As leader of the national Green Amendments movement she is working nationwide to inspire and partner with local organizations seeking to secure the passage of Green Amendments (Bill of Rights environmental rights amendments) in every state constitution across our nation and ultimately at the federal level. She is working to advance this new pathway for environmental protection and environmental justice, because our current system of laws is fundamentally failing us by focusing more on legalizing environmental pollution and degradation rather than preventing it. To date, she led the effort to secure a Green Amendment in New York, has inspired and is working with communities in over 20 states where Green Amendments have been proposed, and is helping to enforce Green Amendments in the 3 states where they now existing (PA, NY, MT).
Published in November 2017, her book "The Green Amendment, Securing Our Rights to a Healthy Environment" is the Gold Medal Winner for nature conservation from the 2018 Living Now Awards, Recognizing the Year's Best Books for Better Living and received an honorable mention as a 2017 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year. She is honored to have her book likened to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring by Mark Ruffalo and others. She recently released the books 2nd edition. In the new edition, Maya turns her attention to the often-neglected issues of environmental racism, the climate crisis, the human health devastation caused by environmental degradation, and the importance of protecting future generations from pollution and environmental harm.
Since 1994 Maya has had the honor of leading the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and serving as the Delaware Riverkeeper. It is a position she continues to enjoy today. It was her my role as the Delaware Riverkeeper, and because of her organization the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, that Pennsylvania's Green Amendment was reinvigorated and the new Green Amendment movement was born.
The Delaware Riverkeeper Network is the only advocacy organization working throughout the entire Delaware River Watershed. Through strong and informed advocacy and litigation the Delaware Riverkeeper Network champions and secures the rights of communities to a clean and healthy Delaware River and watershed that is abundant with a diversity of life.