Amanda Rowoldt is an Ohio Field Organizer for Moms Clean Air Force. She is a public policy expert who specializes in building common ground among diverse stakeholders to advance difficult, yet critical, issues. She believes diverse grassroots organizing combined with strategic relationship-building is key to addressing our nation’s most urgent problems.
Amanda founded Work Family Balance, a 501c3 nonprofit that supports the comprehensive health needs of working parents and the comprehensive development of children. While working in this role and thinking critically about the stressors that compromise parents’ health and happiness, Amanda realized that climate change and plastic pollution were causing her stress. Oversized plastic containers were inconvenient, frustrating, and added to feelings of “mom guilt.”
In 2023, the Canadian wildfires impacted millions of Ohioans, including her family, and forced her active boys to stay indoors for days and weeks during summertime. Without adequate physical activity, the children were agitated and difficult to manage, and she found this increased her stress and decreased her mental health. Amanda is determined to raise awareness about the interconnectedness of air pollution, climate change, and mental health and to make Ohio’s families healthier and happier.
Amanda lives in Central Ohio with her husband, children, and dog, Roxie. She has a master’s degree in conflict management from George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of California Santa Cruz, and she is originally from Southern California. Her work has been featured in the Reporting Project, The Cool Down, Inside Climate News, La Prensa, Entre Mamás El Podcast, Plastics News, the Newark Advocate, Eco-Plastics in Packaging, and WOSU.
See how moms are making a difference in Ohio.