Sprouts of Hope: Recycling in Cambridge

Spreading the Word About Recycling

By Lilly

The Sprouts of Hope had the opportunity to participate in some fun events in Cambridge —the Mayfair and Fresh Pond Day. The MayFair is a festival that happens every year in Harvard Square on the 1^st of May, and it is always a very exciting and fun event. At the MayFair, we worked with Meryl Brott, who oversees recycling for the city, as volunteers for The Department of Public Works.

Our job was to walk around the MayFair and survey people about what they know about recycling in Cambridge. Meryl also had set up a booth where people could come and ask questions about recycling and composting, and take free posters, information packets and stickers.

Surveying people was hard work, but it was also a lot of fun! It was interesting to see how many people were unaware of certain things they can recycle. For example, many people did not know that they can recycle hard plastics like broken laundry baskets in their curbside recycling, and they were very interested when we told them that they could.

We did a similar thing a week later on Fresh Pond Day — and we are going to help Meryl again in early June at the Riverfest. Risa, Eliza and I set up a table very similar to the one we had at the MayFair. We also set up a compost bin to catch people’s interest by showing them what it looks like. Many people came to us with questions about composting, recycling and rain barrels.

It was a very fun experience and we were able to help a lot of people get answers to their questions.

Sprouts of Hope: Earth Day

Becoming Friends With the Earth

By Maya

On Earth Day, April 22^nd, I volunteered at the Boston Children’s Museum. Early that morning I took the T into South Station with Kelly Sullivan, another member of the Roots & Shoots New England Youth Leadership Council. We were going there to do activities with kids about helping take care of the Earth.

When we got to the museum, we headed up to the second floor family room. Kellan Hays, who is the media and program coordinator for Roots & Shoots Northeast, and two Roots & Shoots interns, Fiona and Katie, who were also volunteering, were already there.

We had three tables, and on them we set out an animal matching game, a recycle scavenger hunt, and a wishing tree for the Earth. For the animal matching game kids paired up pictures of baby animals with the mama animal. After they did that they could flip the cards over and learn a cool fact about the animal. One little girl had me read and explain every single card for her!

For the scavenger hunt kids took lists and ran around the room looking for different materials, checking off the ones that could be recycled and those that could not. Then, they could do a recycling word scramble.

The tree for Earth was my favorite activity. Kids took different cut outs—a bird, a star or a leaf, and they wrote messages about the Earth on them. They said what they love about the Earth, what they do to help the Earth, or what they could do to help the Earth. By the end of the day the tree was barely visible. The notes and drawings were all very cute and inspiring!

Everyone seemed to greatly enjoy the activities, including me. I can definitely say the day was a success and I am looking forward to doing this again next year.

Sprouts of Hope: Learning About Sustainability

Sustainability—Now a Part of Our Schools

By Maya

The Sprouts of Hope had the opportunity to meet with the Cambridge Public School’s new Sustainability Coordinator, Kristen von Hoffman. She has a lot of experience with environmental issues; before she took this job, she was the founder of Greenfox schools, a nonprofit organization that works to make schools green and sustainable.

One of the things that Kristen does is work with Meryl Brott to expand composting in the schools!

Meryl helped King Open to start a pilot composting program and now she and Kristen are working with other schools to make composting part of what kids do with food waste. The city’s Department of Public Works, where Meryl works, put

together a manual with Frequently Asked Questions that explains how to set up composting in a school cafeteria —and we hope all of the schools in Cambridge will be doing this soon.

So far, King Open, the 9th Grade Campus, and the Graham & Parks schools are composting their cafeteria leftovers. From September to February, these schools have composted more than 14,500 pounds and saved more than 14,500 lbs of CO2, according to Meryl and Kristen. That's equal to the weight of 1.75 elephants.

Kristen is now working to create and implement a sustainability plan for the school district. The five main categories she uses to look at the whole picture of the sustainability in the schools are energy, waste, food, products, and green space. She devised a report that outlines the major goals and she named the program, Cambridge Green Schools Initiative (CGSI).

She wanted to hear our ideas as she works to create a CGSI website. Here are a few we came up with:

Making a YouTube video

Advertising on Facebook

Drawing a logo

Posting photo albums and other visuals

Tying in with our blog—The Sprouts of Hope Kids

Advertising in areas around the high school

Holding contests to get kids involved

Thinking of a motto

Including sustainability projects in community service hours

Raffles

Having kids take a sustainability pledge

Including links to a group page

Anything else to engage the community.

We even started think of more acronyms for the five parts of sustainability — energy, waste, food, products and green space — and by the time Kristen left we had sketched a possible logo that she took home with her.

During the meeting we also discussed the importance of biodiversity, reforestation and, of course, sustainability. Population is increasing, so sustainability is vital. We all can and we all need to make a difference.

Kristen also told us about geo-engineering. Geo-engineering is about the way we look at changing the world while keeping in mind the big picture. Sustainability is one of the components involved with engineering the earth. A main focus is eliminating the effects of climate change. She told us about some of the earth-saving inventions, such as panels that deflect sunlight and how it ultimately deflects heat; naval ships that can do chemical reactions for climate change; and man-made trees that suck in carbon dioxide and transfer it into hydrogen.

We definitely learned a lot from the meeting and we are hope to have a chance to follow up on all the ideas we discussed to launch a great website for CGSI.

Sprouts of Hope: Collecting Socks for Homeless People

Being Part of the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Sock Drive

By Eliza

For the second year in a row, the Sprouts of Hope decided to participate in the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP)’s sock drive. BHCHP is a city-wide nonprofit organization that provides health care for homeless people in Boston, and every year in the early spring, they have a sock drive.

Socks can reduce the risk of skin infections, prevent frostbite, and foster good hygiene. Many homeless and poor people do not have access t

o clean socks.

When we went to the sock drive finale and delivery party, we learned more about BHCHP and their yearly sock drive. We found out that last year, 13,000 pairs of socks were donated during the sock drive. That is a lot of socks, and hopefully this year there will be even more!

We listened as Cecilia Ibeabuchi, who works at the BHCHP clinic as a nurse, explained that homeless people aren’t allowed to take their socks off in shelters in order to prevent infections and bad smells. But this means that homeless people’s socks get really dirty. Often, this means they have to use plastic shopping bags as socks.

She invited us to come by the foot clinic so we could see how our socks are being used —and learn more about what she and the volunteers do when people arrive there with foot problems.

The Sprouts contributed 65 pairs of socks to the sock drive, and it felt great to be supporting people in need. We were able to exchange business cards with nurses and volunteers who work at BHCHP and we hope to continue our partnership with them in the future. Overall, it was an inspiring event and a cause worth learning about and celebrating.

Sprouts of Hope: Learning About Sustainability

Sustainability—Now a Part of Our Schools

By Maya

The Sprouts of Hope had the opportunity to meet with the Cambridge Public School’s new Sustainability Coordinator, Kristen von Hoffman. She has a lot of experience with environmental issues; before she took this job, she was the founder of Greenfox schools, a nonprofit organization that works to make schools green and sustainable.

One of the things that Kristen does is work with Meryl Brott to expand composting in the schools!

Meryl helped King Open to start a pilot composting program and now she and Kristen are working with other schools to make composting part of what kids do with food waste. The city’s Department of Public Works, where Meryl works, put together a manual with Frequently Asked Questions that explains how to set up composting in a school cafeteria —and we hope all of the schools in Cambridge will be doing this soon.

So far, King Open, the 9th Grade Campus, and the Graham & Parks schools are composting their cafeteria leftovers. From September to February, these schools have composted more than 14,500 pounds and saved more than 14,500 lbs of CO2, according to Meryl and Kristen. That's equal to the weight of 1.75 elephants.

Kristen is now working to create and implement a sustainability plan for the school district. The five main categories she uses to look at the whole picture of the sustainability in the schools are energy, waste, food, products, and green space. She devised a report that outlines the major goals and she named the program, Cambridge Green Schools Initiative (CGSI).

She wanted to hear our ideas as she works to create a CGSI website. Here are a few we came up with:

Making a YouTube video

Advertising on Facebook

Drawing a logo

Posting photo albums and other visuals

Tying in with our blog—The Sprouts of Hope Kids

Advertising in areas around the high school

Holding contests to get kids involved

Thinking of a motto

Including sustainability projects in community service hours

Raffles

Having kids take a sustainability pledge

Including links to a group page

Anything else to engage the community.

We even started think of more acronyms for the five parts of sustainability — energy, waste, food, products and green space — and by the time Kristen left we had sketched a possible logo that she took home with her.

During the meeting we also discussed the importance of biodiversity, reforestation and, of course, sustainability. Population is increasing, so sustainability is vital. We all can and we all need to make a difference.

Kristen also told us about geo-engineering. Geo-engineering is about the way we look at changing the world while keeping in mind the big picture. Sustainability is one of the components involved with engineering the earth. A main focus is eliminating the effects of climate change. She told us about some of the earth-saving inventions, such as panels that deflect sunlight and how it ultimately deflects heat; naval ships that can do chemical reactions for climate change; and man-made trees that suck in carbon dioxide and transfer it into hydrogen.

We definitely learned a lot from the meeting and we are hope to have a chance to follow up on all the ideas we discussed to launch a great website for CGSI.

Sprouts of Hope: Collecting Socks for Homeless People

Participating in the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Sock Drive

By Eliza

For the second year in a row, the Sprouts of Hope decided to participate in the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP)’s sock drive. BHCHP is a city-wide nonprofit organization that provides health care for homeless people in Boston, and every year in the early spring, they have a sock drive. Socks can reduce the risk of skin infections, prevent frostbite, and foster good hygiene. Many homeless and poor people do not have access to clean socks.

When we went to the sock drive finale and delivery party, we learned more about BHCHP and their yearly sock drive. We found out that last year, 13,000 pairs of socks were donated during the sock drive. That is a lot of socks, and hopefully this year there will be even more!

We listened as Cecilia Ibeabuchi, who works at the BHCHP clinic as a nurse, explained that homeless people aren’t allowed to take their socks off in shelters in order to prevent infections and bad smells. But this means that homeless people’s socks get really dirty. Often, this means they have to use plastic shopping bags as socks.

She invited us to come by the foot clinic so we could see how our socks are being used —and learn more about what she and the volunteers do when people arrive there with foot problems.

The Sprouts contributed 65 pairs of socks to the sock drive, and it felt great to be supporting people in need. We were able to exchange business cards with nurses and volunteers who work at BHCHP and we hope to continue our partnership with them in the future. Overall, it was an inspiring event and a cause worth learning about and celebrating.

Giving Back: Volunteering to Help Others

Donating Clothing for Boston Health Care for the Homeless

By Risa

A few weeks earlier four of us—Lilly, Maya, Kaya and me—donated winter clothing in a benefit for the Boston Health Care for the Homeless. We used some of the money we’d raised to buy new pieces of winter clothing like hats and gloves and scarves and mittens. (They wanted items of clothing that were new, not used.) Then we got to go skating at the amazing huge rink at Bright Arena at Harvard University.

This was our way of showing support for the terrific work of Boston Health Care.

Last spring we were a part of its spring drive to get lots of white socks for people who they treat who are homeless. Eliza, especially, got lots of people to donate socks as part of her bat mitzvah project at her temple and the rest of us convinced some of our friends to donate socks, too. After we gathered several big bags of socks, we took them to the main building of Boston Health Care for the Homeless. And Dr. Jim O’Connell, who has directed Boston Health Care for the Homeless for more than two decades, gave us a tour of the new facilities across the street from Boston Medical Center.

We learned about all of the ways the staff of doctors and nurses and dentists and social workers take care of people who are homeless. So when we heard about this clothing drive, we wanted to do what we could to help.

All of us had a great time at the skating event, and we felt great about donating the clothes to the homeless. We even got to take pictures with Santa! It was a great way to spend a few hours of our weekend— hanging out, skating, and helping a great cause.