Anne Rolfes, founder of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, has been honored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for her leadership and advocacy in environmental health.

Anne Rolfes (center) with members of the
Louisiana Bucket Brigade Board of Directors (2002).
Left to right: Karla Rettig, Scott Frickel, Laura and Christine Cox.
Anne Rolfes, facilitator Monica Buckhorn, Denny Larson.

Rolfes is one of 10 people across the United States to receive the foundation's 2007 Community Health Leaders award. Recipients receive $105,000 to further their work, as well as a $20,000 personal award, the foundation said in a news release.

With the Bucket Brigade, Rolfes has worked with local communities to mitigate pollution from industrial sites. Members of the Bucket Brigade test air and soil samples for pollution. Under Rolfes' direction, the brigade has developed the largest collection of community-gathered air samples in the United States and documented many violations of state and federal air quality standards, the news release said.

Rolfes said the award, coming from such a prestigious organization, adds legitimacy to the Bucket Brigade's work.

"What's different about this is who it is," she said. "They're the largest health-funder in the country. They're enormous.

"It says these issues of neighborhoods right near refineries is a public health issue. We've been saying this for a long time. But this gives it a lot of legitimacy."

Rolfes said the award will also help her organization raise money. "They can help us fund a hot-button issue, and this is a hot-button issue," she said.

Rolfes was nominated by JoLynn Montgomery, a research investigator at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health.

Rolfes is a former Peace Corps volunteer. Her environmental advocacy began in Nigeria, where she documented the environmental and health destruction of the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta, the news release said.

"Anne's work is an example of the many efforts under way in communities throughout the nation to take action to address their own problems by creating new approaches and solutions and demanding changes in outdated systems and institutions," said Janice Ford Griffin, the foundation's community health leaders director.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation awards $1.25 million annually to health leaders who have surmounted personal and other obstacles to improve health and health care at the community level. The foundation is the nation's largest philanthropy devoted to improving health and health care.