Skyridge Student Earns Grant

A team Skyridge students spent a Saturday in April at the Student Environmental Leadership Forum (SELF), a free all-day student conference held at Clark College in Vancouver, WA. Sponsored by Clark County Solid Waste Program, attendees learned about a variety of environmental topics and leadership development skills through multiple educational sessions. The goal of SELF was that students gain a greater knowledge about environmental topics and leadership skills to enable them to create ‘action plans’ with solutions for environmental issues within their community.

This month brought about an opportunity to apply for a mini-grant of up to $500 for the “action plan” projects they had developed through the SELF Forum. Seventh grader and Green Team member Allison Emmet wrote and was awarded the full $500 funding for her “Envirotote Lunchbag” project. She will be using the money to purchase cloth lunch bags with the Skyridge colors and name for students to purchase. Allison hopes this will cut down on the amount of lunch garbage generated each day by students. Since the bags are washable and reusable, Allison is looking forward to a positive reaction to this example of practicing good environmental stewardship.