While this clean-up is a town initiative, the teen run organization, Eco-Youth will not only be cleaning up they will be hosting a raffle and will be have water for the volunteers. (They will be stationed in the Gazebo of that park)
I would like to share the story of the creation of Eco-Youth. A completely teen run organization that is committed to working to improve our Earth and community.
When the world “closed down”, my daughter, Lusandra Garcia was a 15 year old sophomore honor student who was extremely active with a full calendar that included Band, voice lessons, twirling and volunteering.
The transition to inactivity was very hard for her as for many of her friends. This forced downtime had her searching for ways to be productive while remaining safe at home.
From this came her idea to form Eco-Youth, an organization committed to educating others about Climate Change and how they could help improve the Earth for generations to come.
With a Google Calendar and Zoom account she mobilized her friends to take on roles of writers, editors, graphic designers, and public relations managers.
Since the launch of their website in July 2020 these teens have researched and written over 60 articles on various topics including the effects of Covid on the Environment, Fact Checking the Presidential Debates, Snow in Texas and simple swaps we can make to reduce waste.
As a career educator I know that for teens to willingly choose to research, write, edit, rewrite and publish articles is no easy task. For them to make this commitment speaks volumes of Lusandra’s leadership and their passion.
In September 2020 after months apart these teens came together with masks and gloves and held their first Shore-Line Clean Up. It was truly inspiring to watch these teens decide to use their Saturday to help clean up a mess they didn’t make!
I believe these teens are inspirational and would be great to be featured on the Today Show as examples to us of all ages of how we can make a difference and give to our community and Earth, not just for Earth Day but everyday.
Thank you for reading this. Please check out them out at https://ecoyouth.org/
Sincerely,
Proud Momma
Kasandra Lopez-Garcia
201-981-0019
