Our neighborhood public elementary school in Venice, California has done a lot to promote environmental awareness and educate our children, the future of the planet, of the importance of a sustainable future. We have increased our green in many ways.
With the help of our parents, the community and the faculty at Coeur d Alene elementary, we have made huge strides to green our campus and reduce our waste. We have a Green Team committee that heads up many tasks, one of which is our recycling program. With the help of the Department of Water and Power, we have big blue bins on campus to collect all recyclable materials. We also collect plastic bottles and cans that we redeem for money at our local recycling center. But we don’t use many plastic bottles and cans because we promote a ‘No Waste Lunch’ at our school. We encourage the kids who bring their lunch to use reusable Tupperware instead of plastic bags, re-usable lunch sacks, and re-usable water bottles etc… For the kids who eat at the cafeteria, we have set up bins to collect the paper trays, the plastic trays and even a compost bin to collect the organic materials.
The Green Team committee has also formed a Junior Green Team to help promote our green activities and participate in eco-learning activities. They have designed numerous visual aids to capture the green tips and present these green tips at the school’s weekly Monday morning assembly. Their motto, chanted weekly by the entire school, is; Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!
Our Green Team committee is most proud of our ‘Butterflies and Boulders’ project started this year. With donations from parents and local sponsors, we removed asphalt from our playground and replaced it with green space. With the help of Tree People, we planted indigenous trees and drought-tolerate plants. The kids absolutely love this space and you can find them heading straight for the green area at recess and lunch to play or just sit on a boulder to relax. We have big plans to continue this greening process on our campus. We just need the money. These green areas will be enjoyed by future generations of children long after this generation of children have graduated. ‘DoSomething.org’ can be a part of this legacy.
The Green Team committee does so much more to Increase our Green. We recycle batteries as a service to our community. We’ve hosted an ‘Organic Pancake Breakfast’, school bike-a-thons and jog-a-thons. We introduced the ‘I-walk’ and bike to school Wednesdays, a ‘no pollute commute’ practice that has become ingrained at the school. Most recently we answered the call from Increase Your Green and had an e-waste drive in March to collect all unwanted electronic materials in our neighborhood to keep them out of the landfills. This is the kind of dedication that will help ensure tomorrow's leaders protect the earth’s limited resources.
As a grateful recipient of this contest prize money, the first thing we would do is buy and install rain barrels. We have already identified the brand we would like and where we would put them, but they are $75 each and we might need professional help cutting the gutters to install them. For all the increased green area, we want to make sure we are using rain water captured on our campus. When the rain barrels are installed, we would continue on our path to create more green space. We have big plans and big dreams to create a green library space where the kids could sit under a tree and read a book.
Your kind consideration on behalf of the Green Team Committee and the kids of Coeur d’ Alene would be most appreciated.
