Keyen Singer
Nixyaawii, Mission, OR

Níix̣ łk̓ʷí! Inmí waníkt tanantímki iwá Wáašaša qmɨmsalí ptínit ku šuyaputɨ́mt Keyen Singer. Nixyáawiikni ku Ímatallam Tímani Tičámkni našwá. Wínaxaaš Nčí Ititamatpamá waníči University of Oregon. (Sahaptin Umatilla)

Good day! My Umatilla (Indian) name is Dancing Hummingbird Girl and English name is Keyen Singer. I’m from Nixyaawii, Mission, OR, and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. I attend the University of Oregon. (English)

Ani Hopp
Portland, OR

Ani Hopp is a soon-to-be junior at Ida B. Wells High School. She loves to take hikes, and go sailing around the Puget Sound area. She knows that the ecosystem around her is very dependent on salmon, and would like to preserve that ecosystem for others to enjoy in the future.

Ani hopes to one day see a world where salmon runs and those who depend on them are thriving, and a future in which we can coexist with nature.

Isabella Williams
Richland, Washington

This fall, Isabella will be a senior at WSU studying Earth and Environmental science with a minor in Forestry. Advocating for healthy and abundant salmon populations is important to Isabella because her family loves to fish on the Snake and Columbia River. Understanding that farmland, forests, and this whole PNW area thrives on maintaining the rich sediment and salmon greatly impacts that nutrient level. Her vision for the PNW is to increase clean energy resources, have less pollution runoff, and create a place that's healthy and safe for humans and other organisms to thrive in.

Marin Plut (she/her)
Seattle, WA

Marin is studying Environmental Analysis (Food Systems) at Scripps College. One of the things that brought Marin into this work was the Elwha River dam removal project. Lessons about the Elwha were important keystones in her middle school and high school education. Among other things, it taught her how resilient salmon are. In a time where everything feels impossible and there’s a lot of fear around looking into what lies ahead, salmon lead the way for us. No matter what the problem is, no matter what the future looks like, we have to keep swimming. Just like the salmon, we might never see the world we’re building, but our efforts today will allow future generations, one day, to make it to a world everyone thrives in. She hopes for a future where everyone has access to connect with our beautiful ecosystems and feel rooted in the landscapes. Where salmon and orca are abundant, demonstrating how interconnected our lives are from the coast to the inland mountains. The best chance we have to bring us into these sustainable and just relations with the earth is to follow the lead of the tribes, who have been stewards and caretakers of these lands for time immemorial.

Owen Begley-Collier
Seattle, WA

Owen Begley-Collier is a student at WWU advocating for Snake River dam breaching. For Owen, a lifelong love for orcas has been a gateway into environmental activism. For the past four years Owen has advocated for a free flowing Snake River with WYORCA, Snake River Savers, Students for Climate Action Bellingham and now, Save Our Wild Salmon.

Owen has been involved with the organization of banner deployments, letter writing events, film screenings, talks with political staffers and rallies.

Taigen Soethe
Edmunds, WA

Learning about whales and dolphins at a young age inspired Taigen to study marine biology in college. The plight of our local Southern Resident killer whales led her to learn about salmon recovery efforts. Working with the NextGen Collective has made her passionate about salmon recovery in its own right. She envisions a future in which we are able to balance energy and economic needs with healthy and abundant salmon and steelhead populations in the Pacific Northwest.