GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — In the heat of July, the pool at Martin Luther King Park in Grand Rapids is a popular attraction for students on summer break. Two weeks ago, though, when smoke from Canadian wildfires filled the air and turned outdoor activity into a health hazard, the pool sat empty.
"We could see it. We could smell it. For many of us, we could feel it with every breath," said Trenton Belton, a rising senior at East Kentwood High School. "I really hit me. I was like, 'This is not okay.'"
On Monday, Belton and other students gathered with environmental leaders at Martin Luther King Park to call on city, state and federal officials to invest in a future with clean, breathable air.
"I feel like it's important for us to advocate now," said Belton, who has a number of family members with upper respiratory conditions, including a grandmother with COPD. "We inherit the decisions made today."
JustAir, an environmental tech company whose air quality monitors deliver real-time and hyper-local data to researchers and residents alike, also spoke at the press event.
Grand Rapids
Air quality monitors installed throughout 49507 aimed at climate justice
In 2023, Just Air installed 17 air quality monitors in the Grand Rapids area. In 2025, though, a portion of the project — six monitors in the city's 49507 zip code — went offline as a grant that had been supporting it had expired.
In March, the City of Grand Rapids filled the funding gap with a one-year grant of $18,435, allowing the project to resume as normal.
"We hope residents will take advantage of our data and use it to create positive change, and advocate for better policies," Just Air's Nate Rauh-Bieri said.
Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids adopted its climate plan. What are its top priorities?
Last August, the City of Grand Rapids passed its Climate Action and Adaptation Plan in an attempt to reduce 62.8% of the its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and 100% by 2050.
"The City of Grand Rapids wants to continue to invest in its youth," Grand Rapids Third Ward Commissioner Marshall Kilgore said at the press event.
Kilgore, who helped secure the funding for JustAir, said that as cities do what they can to address climate change, he hopes higher powers will do the same.
"The federal government needs to do their job," he said. "That is my hope. That the federal government will stop pulling back grants, stop pausing them, stop all the dysfunction, and work with us to safeguard our community against the climate crisis that is very present."
The air of Grand Rapids' future is what Gen Zers like Belton will breathe. For him, being able to monitor possible pollutants in the air is a place to begin.
"It's really just to ensure that we're okay," he said.
To view JustAir's air quality monitors in Grand Rapids, click here.
