Building a Resilient Future Together: The Highlands: Together We Decide Project

Building a sustainable future is the heart of Highlands: Together We Decide, a community-driven initiative launched in September 2025. While increasing our resilience to flooding is a critical priority following the 2023 disaster, our primary goal is to empower residents to design a long-term, sustainable vision for the Town of Highlands, Fort Montgomery, and the Village of Highland Falls.

Through this project, we are:

Building a Sustainable Future: We are identifying ecological, economic and social goals and creating systems that ensure our environment and economy can thrive for generations.

Strengthening Resilience: We are learning to design landscapes and public lands that reduce the danger of future floods while remaining useful and accessible for everyday life.

Empowering Every Voice: Supported by Sustainable Hudson Valley and the Partners for Climate Action "Funding Futures" program, we are facilitating multi-lingual community conversations to ensure all residents have a say in our town's direction.

How are we doing this? Residents are taking leadership roles to map local needs and build the social networks needed for a thriving community. Through the Highlands Together We Decide program, residents are providing input on what they see happening in their neighborhoods, on Main Street, within groups and organizations and designing solutions to meet those needs. Through surveys and interviews with a wide swath of community residents we are putting together a portfolio of actionable ideas which will be prioritized and presented to local municipal boards, non-profit agencies and others who can implement them.

Our Team:

Olga Kuchar Anderson is currently Chair of the Town of Highlands Citizens Environmental Advisory Committee which she founded in 2019. The Committee focuses its work primarily on New York State’s Clean Energy and Climate Smart Community initiatives on behalf of the municipality. Olga is manager of the Community Garden at Holy Innocents in Highland Falls, a member of the Friends of the Highland Falls Library, and sits on the Board of Directors at Sustainable Hudson Valley. She is a recent recipient of the Evelyn Drew Memorial Democratic Service Award for her environmental work.

Roxana Bartolomé has spent over a decade working in the non-profit sector, with experience in fundraising, community engagement, and partnership development. Beyond her professional work, she is passionate about giving back through volunteer-led community initiatives. From 2020–2022, she was a founding member and lead coordinator of Clean Up Crown Heights in Brooklyn, organizing neighborhood cleanups and beautification efforts, and also supported food access and vaccine outreach through Crown Heights Mutual Aid during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since moving to Highland Falls in 2022, she has been an active member of the Citizens Environmental Advisory Committee and is currently training as a Master Volunteer in Community Resilience Building through the Cornell Cooperative Extension.