For the second installment of our Community Spotlight series, Director of Organizing Oriana Holmes-Price speaks with Ty Gould Jacinto, founder of the Native American Advancement Corporation. Ty shares her journey in environmental justice, from launching workforce development initiatives to advancing conservation efforts through weatherization, solar energy, and land stewardship. The two explore the challenges of advocating for Indigenous communities in South Jersey, the intersection of environmental and economic justice, and the importance of reconnecting with the land. This series, released throughout 2025, highlights local leaders working to advance environmental justice across New Jersey.
Introduction
Oriana: Tell us a bit about yourself and your organization.
Ty: My name is Ty Gould Jacinto from the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Nation in southern New Jersey, and I work for the Native American Advancement Corporation, which is a nonprofit organization that was started by myself and is still run by myself. We are a BIPOC organization, so all of our board members and our management are from the Native communities around the area—not just ours, but others. And we are in energy conservation with weatherization and now solar, which is exciting. And we also have a conservation place called the Cohanzick Nature Reserve, where we are teaching the new generation, as well as anybody else that wants to learn, about reducing the carbon footprint, soil conservation, water conservation, and being perfect land stewards—understanding the sacred symbiosis, being one with nature.
Founding of Native American Advancement Corporation
Oriana: What inspired you to create the Native American Advancement Corporation? How did you fall into this world of advocacy?
Ty: The Native American Advancement Corporation was birthed out of a response to a need for jobs for our local community. The lower five counties of New Jersey are in a high poverty level with very low opportunities for work. At the same time, a lot of our employment did not cater to that segment of the population that was hands-on—meaning carpenters, farmers, and so forth. So it was built out of a need for workforce development.
There was an opportunity to get into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) program, and out of that need, I started the nonprofit organization. I am a fourth-generation carpenter, so I’ve been immersed in carpentry all my life. This was a perfect opportunity to get involved in the Weatherization Assistance Program. At that time, I brought my father over, Chief Mark Gould, to be our construction manager, because I always learned from him, and, you know, he had his own construction company.
We do highly skilled training through the BPI, and that’s how NAAC got started. And then, from there, we did the weatherization assistance, then we added on the heating improvement program, then we added on lead. Now we do LIHEAP assistance, and now we’re into solar. We do AmeriCorps Climate Corps with our new Cohanzick Reserve, and it just keeps growing from there. Everything that we’re adding on aligns with our mission of conservation.
Environmental justice looks different here than in the cities. In urban areas, people deal with air pollution, lead pipes, and heat islands. But here, we have to fight for soil conservation, groundwater preservation, and sustainable farming practices.
Ty Gould Jacinto
Environmental Justice and Program Impact
Oriana: What does actually achieving environmental justice mean to you? How do you see that as part of the bigger picture?
Ty: That’s a loaded question because there are a lot of aspects to environmental justice. One being that the education level—we’re not catering to the regular people. We’re expecting everyone to be technically inclined, to find information on the web and social media, when that’s just not the case.
You have the elderly population that has no connection at all. So they may be living next to a brownfield, or they may not know what their rights are. So how do you get that word to them? To advocate for them, we have to either get flyers to them or go door to door. How do you get people to be able to respond to what your programs are if they’re not technically inclined?
We found a huge gap where people did not know they could get weatherization assistance. It is double the poverty level. Homeowners weren’t even aware that they could qualify for such programs. We’ve been in houses where we replaced a heater for a 95-year-old woman who had no heat for five years in her house. When our guys got there, it was one of the coldest Februarys we had, lots of snow on the ground, and she was huddled over a kerosene space heater in her kitchen. By the time they got to her bedroom, she had two sleeping bags that she slept with just to stay warm at night. Her house was no higher than 55 degrees with that kerosene heater.
So when you talk about environmental justice, you’re talking about the fact that there are programs that people can’t access because there’s no communication for them. We had to find creative ways. One of them was boots on the ground, door to door. We took our AmeriCorps program and did client education with our AmeriCorps Climate Corps program, letting people know that they qualify for this program and that this program exists. We can’t leave that segment of the population out, because then they’ll also be left out of another program they could benefit from just because they aren’t electronically inclined.
Challenges and Overcoming Barriers
Oriana: I want to stick with the thread that you’ve been sharing so far around the challenges that you’re facing. What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Ty: Well, the biggest obstacle we overcame was the fact that I was a Native American female. Some of the local agencies, and I don’t want to say any names, would not cooperate with us and even tried to shut us down, so we had to prove ourselves even more.
I’ve been immersed in this work my whole life. I have my eight trades construction certification, I know how to build a house from the bottom up, and I understand the technical language. Yet, despite all that, some agencies wouldn’t take us seriously. There were roadblocks everywhere—barriers meant to keep us out of opportunities. But I had a computer science background, so I built our own internal systems to track data, to streamline our processes, and to ensure we were operating at the highest level. That level of preparation helped us succeed, but it also made us resilient. We had to fight for our seat at the table. And once we got there, we didn’t just show up—we showed out. We made sure that our work spoke for itself.
Another challenge was financial sustainability. We’re a nonprofit, and every year it’s a battle to secure funding. It’s a competitive space, and many organizations don’t understand the depth of need in Indigenous communities. People assume we have access to all these benefits, but that’s not the reality. So, I spend a lot of time advocating for funding, writing grants, and proving that our programs are not just necessary but impactful.
Environmental Injustices in South Jersey
Oriana: For people who are not familiar with the Deep South in New Jersey, what are some of the key issues that the lower counties face that you’re helping to address?
Ty: A big issue is just getting the word out. We serve a very rural area, covering a 50-mile radius, so efficiency is key. When we visit someone’s home for weatherization or solar work, we have to make sure we bring everything we need—every tool, every piece of equipment—because going back just for one item would cost too much time and money.
Another challenge is water conservation. We’ve seen the overuse of groundwater because of large-scale farming operations planting non-native trees that require excessive irrigation. These farms don’t realize—or don’t care—that their water usage is depleting our aquifers. There’s also the issue of deep tilling, which erodes topsoil and leads to sediment buildup in river basins, disrupting fish populations.
Environmental justice looks different here than in the cities. In urban areas, people deal with air pollution, lead pipes, and heat islands. But here, we have to fight for soil conservation, groundwater preservation, and sustainable farming practices.
One of the biggest injustices we’re facing now is land conservation that ignores Indigenous communities. Conservation groups and the state are buying up large tracts of land, which on the surface sounds great. But in reality, they’re fencing off areas that our people have traditionally used for hunting, fishing, and gathering. We’ve gone from exploitation of the land to over-restriction, and we’re caught in the middle.
For example, we used to have access to large forests where we could harvest plants for medicine, hunt for food, and gather natural materials. Now, those same lands have “Do Not Enter” signs, and we’re being pushed out of spaces we’ve used for generations. And yet, at the same time, the deer population is out of control because there aren’t enough natural predators. It’s an imbalance that’s been created because people with no ties to the land are making decisions without consulting the communities that have lived here for centuries.
Investing in the Next Generation
Oriana: What advice would you share with someone who is new to this space — someone who is new to environmental justice work, Indigenous-based work, or equity work in general?
Ty: I would say, start asking questions and don’t be complacent. If you see something that doesn’t make sense, ask why.
For example, if you have a tree farm down the road from you and you see massive amounts of sprinklers running all the time, ask yourself, “Why are we watering those trees? The Indigenous trees in my yard don’t need extra watering—so why do these?” Ask why we’re planting trees from Japan that require more water, and why we’re allowing them to be sold and planted in local yards when they don’t belong here.
One of the things we advocate for is “God’s Grass”—what the Creator naturally grows. A meadow full of clover, dandelions, wildflowers, herbs, and medicines. But instead of embracing that, we put down weed killer. We poison the very plants that feed the birds and the bees.
Since the 1970s, we’ve lost 30 million birds because of our landscaping practices. Why? Because we’ve been conditioned to believe that a green, uniform lawn is more beautiful than a natural meadow. Towns impose ordinances that don’t allow grass to grow taller than 12 inches, but what if we changed the mindset? What if we recognized that these so-called “weeds” are actually food, medicine, and habitat? The concept of “weeds” didn’t exist until the grass industry created it. Before then, these plants were resources. Now, people see them as nuisances and spray chemicals to kill them.
If we want to fix this, we have to teach the next generation. We have to invest in youth. Because in 18 years, today’s children will be voting. They will be making decisions. You already see it happening on college campuses—young people are pushing for change. That’s where real transformation begins.
Challenging the Status Quo
Oriana: I think the last question that we can close out with is: If there’s one thing you want people to know about you, either personally or about NAAC and the regions you serve, what would it be?
Ty: If there’s one thing I want people to know about me, it’s this: It’s not I that lives, but the Creator that lives in me.
That’s the essence of everything I do.
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