About Us

Caring Action Made Simple (CAMaS) is inspired by the common camas, a plant at risk due to industrialized agriculture and land development.

"Common camas (Camassia quamash) was one of the most important cultural foods in Coast Salish territory and it continues to play a key ecological role, providing early season nectar for two federally endangered butterflies and countless other pollinators."

Earthlab

Camas is a plant native to the west coast where the camas root was extensively used as a food source for Indigenous peoples.

Confluence Library

Four people struggling to lower their carbon footprints and reduce waste came together to pool their ideas and experiences. With the ambition to make it easier for others, they created this list.

Michelle Downes manages a team of UX designers working on Autodesk Construction Cloud platform, working towards making building more sustainable. She has a BFA in painting (Limerick School of Art & Design-San Francisco Art Institute) and an MFA in Computer Arts/New Media (Academy of Art University, SF). Michelle has been living her values of sustainability, kindly educating the people around her, and dumpster diving to salvage recyclables since at least 2005 when she & Caroline worked together in San Francisco for an interior design studio. Michelle generously shares her website know-how as well as wisdom and experience being kinder to the earth while staying sane. Michelle is grateful each day to have found kind and powerful companions to champion small ways to make a difference.

Stephanie Woirol is a landscape architect who has worked in Seattle for 8 years and uses her free time to watch movies, reread books, and create things. She grew up near Los Angeles, spent her summers on a lake north of Spokane, Washington, and studied earth science and geophysics at University of California Santa Cruz and landscape architecture at the University of Oregon. One of her goals in life is to make each place better the longer she stays in it; she is so happy to have found this group of ladies who share that goal.

Caroline Arpa is a licensed Architect and a LEED Accredited Professional with a passion for learning about nature while trying to help protect it. She has undergraduate and graduate degrees in Design, Architecture and Anthropology from the University of Florida and Arizona State University. She has worked in academia, interior architecture, architecture and construction for the past 18 years mostly within the San Francisco Bay Area. In late 2019, she founded Studio Dadirri (https://studiodadirri.com/) which centers on the idea of creating contemplative spaces that are connected to nature. She is very thankful to be part of the CAMaS community whose fellow members deeply inspire her and she continues to believe in the power of collective change through small daily acts.

Christine Abbott is a landscape architect, writer and educator who, when asked to write a letter to the US President in 4th grade, asked them to “please make cars illegal because of the pollution.” (lol) She has since adopted a more nuanced, pragmatic attitude about environmental protection, but is still trying to transform our way of life to better care for the earth, while encouraging joyful living. She found landscape architecture (by way of architecture) and is in love with the way design can engage with life and place through many lenses - poetics, ecology, social justice, beauty. She is way lucky to have these three amazing women to inspire and support her work with CAMaS!