Youth Climate Hope artist asks representatives to ‘protect our future,’ consider environmental justice around data centers

When 12-year-old Leah Kercsmar arrived in Washington, D.C., to visit her representatives, she was joined by her family and a poster-sized print of her art, which won the 2026 Climate Hope Art Contest.

As the all-around winner of the annual art contest, now in its fourth year, Kercsmar received an all-expense paid trip to visit Washington, D.C., to meet with the offices of her U.S. representatives, together with United Church of Christ National Ministries staff members the Rev. Brooks Berndt, minister of environmental justice, and Helen Nwabara, policy advocate for international issues.

Kercsmar’s artwork depicts a river surrounded by animals and greenery in the foreground, with an area of smokestacks, industrial buildings, and pollution looming in the back.

A story that packs a punch

Kercsmar, who attends First Church in Belfast UCC in Maine, shared her art with staffers in the offices of Rep. Jared Golden, Sen. Susan Collins, and Sen. Angus King Jr.. She talked about how drawing images of nature offers her a way to show its beauty, while also processing anxiety around the sad state of carbon emissions, temperatures rising, and animals going extinct. 

“The adults in charge are doing nothing to stop it,” Kercsmar said. “We cannot keep stealing resources and wrecking the planet and expect nothing to happen. My generation will remember the politicians of today as the ones who could have done something to protect our future, but did nothing.”

“Every time Leah told her story it packed a punch,” reflected Berndt. “The congressional staff were definitely impacted and took her words to heart.”

Nwabara appreciated how Kercsmar’s family both supported Kercsmar and her environmentalism and added their own enthusiasm.

“Her family allowed her to share her thoughts first, but then also used the meetings to ask their own environmental questions for their elected officials, especially Leah’s older brother Eli, who had such great, specific questions for the staffers regarding policy details and suggestions!” Nwabara said.

Environment justice around data centers

Each visit included an ask for the representative and senators to introduce or cosponsor two bill that would address the environmental injustices created with the rise of hyperscale data centers: one bill would require reporting on the impacts of data centers on air quality, water quality, and electricity consumption; and a second bill would require hyperscale data centers to generate their own energy and move over time to 100% clean energy.

“Around the country, local communities are protesting against current and planned data centers that consume enormous amounts of energy at a significant financial and environmental cost borne by those nearby. A familiar historical pattern is already emerging: the communities most at risk are those with the fewest resources to resist. As people of faith and conscience we are called to address this crisis,” it reads in the Climate Hope document presented to each office.

Artwork as advocacy

Kercsmar’s artwork will be featured on the 2026 advocacy postcards of Climate Hope Affiliates, a joint program of the UCC and Creation Justice Ministries.

“I would like to have hope for the future, but some days it’s very hard,” Kercsmar said to her representatives. “I will continue to use my art to speak up for the planet and I hope you will use your position as representatives to do the same.”

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