MEVO Crew

Vital Stats

Eric F

people helped6000
People Doing It 20

The Problem

MEVO (Mahwah Environmental Volunteers Organization) is a NJ non-profit organization working to solve all environmental problems throughout the world. MEVO operates in New Jersey towns working to establish a larger youth environmental movement by connecting local high schools and colleges together and providing them with the tools and support needed to help them volunteer in their towns. MEVO volunteers perform service/volunteer events every month reducing each town’s effects on environmental problems like climate change, e-waste, and not recycling. MEVO volunteers work to change the lifestyles and actions of town’s citizens and encourage more environmentally friendly and eco-minded lives. MEVO Crew is a newly forming summer program working to help fill the void that could be created if government funded programs like AmeriCorps and the Corporation for National and Community Service, loose funding. With the past House of Representatives vote and the recent shock of many service advocates and non-profit organizations at the possibility of losing invaluable national service programs, MEVO recognized the need for a new populace supported movement for volunteer and environmental work. MEVO Crew will be an independent grant and personal donation funded program for select high school/college students to volunteer throughout the state of New Jersey during the summer performing crucial environmental service. At this time of serious environmental problems like climate change, MEVO recognizes that the there is an overwhelming need for innovative and direct solutions to reduce our contributions to environmental problems. No matter what funding is cut. We will focus for the next years on the issue of climate change and changing the way each town contributes to this problem.

Plan of Action

Starting in the summer of 2012 MEVO Crew will work throughout the state of New Jersey with non-profits, townships, citizens, and MEVO chapters, to reduce each town in New Jersey’s effects on the natural environment. We will operate with the funding provided by grants and private donors. MEVO Crew ideally will have 20 members and 2 crew leaders. The crew will operate with conservation and reducing their impact on the environment in mind. (for example, no plastic bottles, no littering, recycling all food materials, composting, etc..) MEVO Crew will trek across the state of NJ on a carefully planned and organized route. This route will use hiking and biking trails as well as mass transit when needed. MEVO Crew will operate for the entire duration of the average college student’s summer, living at campgrounds and working in townships for weeks at a time. In townships MEVO crew will perform (pre-planned and organized) large scale volunteer events. These events could be hike-a-thons to raise money to support local environmental projects, picking up trash all over towns, delivering recycling bins to businesses, visiting summer camps to talk about conservation and recycling, working with MEVO chapters on projects they developed, carrying out electronic recycling drives, rallying youth support to start a new chapter of MEVO in that town, trail building, and many other innovative ideas. MEVO Crew will be effective in the environmental work we do because of the help and guidance we will have from our MEVO Advisory Board. This Advisory Board, currently in the process of being established will consist of college professors, eco-minded citizens, non-profit leaders, and environmental activists that will come up with innovative solutions to mobilize township citizens to reduce their impact on the natural environment.