Gullah/Geechee Nation chieftess gets $10,000 for environmental education

After a competitive nationwide selection process, Queen Quet Marquetta L. Goodwine will receive a fellowship award to initiate a project to protect endangered species.

She is the St. Helena Island-based chieftess and head-of-state for the Gullah/Geechee Nation.

The award is a $10,000 grant.
“Queen Quet is an environmental hero. She and the other TogetherGreen Fellows help people engage with nature. They look like America: diverse, passionate, and patriotic,” said Audubon President David Yarnold. “Queen Quet is a leader, and we’re pleased to give her a chance to invent the future.”

The Gullah/Geechee community began during the enslavement of African people in America. Due to their geographical isolation, residents did not have significant contact with people of other races, and maintained many elements of their African culture, language and traditions.

The year-long educational effort will create living learning labs utilizing the Hunting Island Nature Center and St. Helena Island as bases of operation.

The project will seek to educate citizens of the Gullah/Geechee Nation from Jacksonville, N.C., to Jacksonville, Fla., on the species that are endangered on the coasts on which they live, how to identify them, and what aspects of residents’ lifestyles affect the habitats and feeding methods of these species.