SRAP is proud to welcome to the team, Charline Whyte, as staff attorney!

Charline joins SRAP as a practicing attorney and seasoned changemaker with experience in environmental and public health protection through local grassroots work, policy change, and legal action. She was born and raised in Costa Rica, where she earned degrees in Special Education and Management of Natural Resources.

Charline is no stranger to hard work and pushes herself to new challenges. In 2005, she and her husband and daughter uprooted their entire lives and moved to the United States.

For over ten years, Charline worked at the Jefferson County Department of Health, where she successfully secured over $7 million in grant funds to address tobacco use. Her work resulted in the adoption of multiple comprehensive smoke-free ordinances across Alabama that protect workers from secondhand smoke.

Charline said:

Living by the principle ‘Be kind to every kind,’ I strive to engage with all beings in a manner that embodies compassion and respect. In confronting the daunting challenge of climate change, it becomes evident that shifting from the harmful practices of industrial farming to regenerative agricultural methods is not just a viable solution, but a crucial one. Joining the SRAP family is a privilege and an honor. I am eager to collaborate with communities in fostering a food system that is not only resilient but also steeped in compassion, fairness, and regeneration.

While working full time and with a teenager at home, Charline graduated as a Cum Laude graduate from the Birmingham School of Law, where she has since served as a professor. As a practicing attorney, Charline primarily worked with the Latino community in personal injury, Federal Labor Standard Act violations, and family law.

Following her passion for addressing climate change, she became a senior representative in 2021 for the Beyond Coal Campaign at the Sierra Club. She developed strategic plans and led the multidisciplinary team across states that combined legal tactics with grassroots advocacy to transition electric utilities from fossil fuel to clean energy and to prevent coal ash from contaminating the drinking water.

Charline is most proud of her volunteer work as environmental steward. In her spare time, you will see her in the riverbeds picking up trash. In 2022, she received Alabama’s Governor’s Award as the Vulcan Volunteer of the Year for her efforts in organizing the community to volunteer in roadside clean up. Most recently she secured $25,000 to install a “litter Gitter” to prevent trash from flowing into Turkey Creek Nature Preserve

About SRAP

For more than 20 years, SRAP has served as a mobilizing force to help communities protect themselves from the damages caused by industrial livestock operations and to advocate for a food system built on regenerative practices, justice, democracy, and resilience. Learn more at sraproject.org.