about

who we are

Lighthouse was founded in response to:

  • The urgent need for community-led climate resilience planning.

  • Find creative and sustainable financial solutions to implement these visions.

Lighthouse Environment Partners is a newly established non-profit dedicated to increasing climate resilience and financial support in coastal North Carolina communities. Facing extreme weather, rising seas, heat, fire, and drought, communities require urgent support. Lighthouse leverages the expertise of its staff and board to serve as an anchor organization, providing crucial assistance through our Resilient Communities Program and Finance Program.

Our small but experienced and passionate staff and board have deep relationships with partner organizations and the communities we serve. In addition to our passion for relationships and working towards common goals and climate justice, our individual staff have specific expertise that is helping us build the foundation to be a trusted and effective anchor organization to communities.

our Philosophy

  • Connection

    We believe in the importance of relationships. We believe that human health, happiness and satisfaction are deeply connected to the relationships we have with the natural world and with one another.

  • Community

    We believe in the power of communities to lead the way in building equitable climate resilience.

  • Collaboration

    We believe in working “with and through” communities rather than “to and for”.

  • Support

    We understand that climate change unjustly and disproportionately impacts marginalized communities, and we are committed to supporting community-led efforts to create resilient and just futures.

  • Equity

    We are committed to supporting equity in our partnerships, processes, and outcomes.

  • Flourishing

    By working together and supporting one another, we can create a resilient and thriving future where both humanity and the environment can flourish.

our team

Kelly Garvy

Executive Director and President of the Board

Kelly is the executive director and founded Lighthouse in 2023 after a diverse career in grassroots organizing, managing social and political campaigns, environmental policy and advocacy, and technology.

Kelly is passionate about the environment and working with people. She loves the hard but crucial work of organizing partners and communities. Before starting Lighthouse, Kelly worked at the North Carolina Coastal Federation building state-wide support for the state’s Coastal Habitat Protection Plan and facilitating community engagement with the South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative. Prior to her work at the Federation, Kelly started Upstate North Carolina, a state legislation tracker. She was the digital director for a successful congressional campaign in 2018, and led a number of successful grassroots campaigns in opposition to fossil fuel expansion and efforts to raise energy bills in the state. Kelly received her masters of environmental management in environmental economics and policy from the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University in 2015 and her undergraduate degree in environmental sciences from the University of Notre Dame in 2010.

When she isn’t wearing many nonprofit hats at Lighthouse, she enjoys fishing, diving, surfing, hiking, and reading.

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Justin Wallace

Community Resilience Coordinator

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Todd Miller

Board Member

Todd Miller is the founder and former executive director of the North Carolina Coastal Federation, a nonprofit with over 16,000 supporters working for a healthier North Carolina coast.

A coastal North Carolina native from the community of Ocean in Carteret County, it was here in 1982 that Miller found his passion—working to keep the coast a great place to live, work and play. Forming partnerships and rallying volunteers, Miller grew the organization from a one-man (and a dog) venture in a back room of his house to three offices covering the North Carolina coast. With more than three dozen staffers and a multi-million-dollar budget targeted for educating the public, advocating for a clean coastand restoring water quality and shorelines, the Federation takes on projects, and partners with others in hundreds of endeavors that influence these priorities.

A graduate of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from which he holds undergraduate and master’s degrees, Miller was selected as a distinguished alumnus by the university in 2013 and honored with a 2015 “Hero of the Seas” award by the Peter Benchley Ocean Awards. Along with numerous other awards and recognitions, Miller is a founding board member of Restore America’s Estuaries and currently serves on the Board of Visitors for the UNC Institute for the Environment.  He has also actively served on the Leadership Committee for the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership for decades prior to stepping down as Executive Director of the Federation on January 31, 2024.

who we work with

  • North River/Laurel Road Ladies Outreach

  • The North Carolina Coastal Federation

  • Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape

  • Eastern Carteret Collaborative

  • The North Carolina Division of Coastal Management Resilient Coastal Communities Program

  • The University of North Carolina Dynamics of Extreme Events, People, and Places (DEEPP) Project

Let’s connect

Building relationships is at the heart of what we do. Connect with us to explore how we can work together.