On June 30, 2023, the Xavier Cortada Foundation partnered with WeCount! and the Community Justice Project to host a community conversation and participatory art activation focused on the future of outdoor workers and extreme heat.

Everyone in attendance had the opportunity to hear from some of the essential workers who spend their days in the sweltering heat. Listening to stories of heat-related illnesses and a lack of protections from employers, everyone was urged to do what they can in the fight for three simple things: WATER, SHADE, REST.

To allow everyone a chance to share their thoughts and feelings, Cortada led “Letters to the Future: Outdoor Workers,” asking folks to write a letter to an outdoor worker living in the year 2123. These letters expressed a range of emotions, from the pain of imagining the working conditions in the context of the climate crisis to the optimism of having achieved hard-earned worker protections.