The Green Team has been hard at work over the last few months on the Garden Objective. They celebrated all their accomplishments with a potluck where they invited members, family, friends, and community members who have helped them accomplish their goal. They had a silent auction to raise money for the club and slideshow which told people about their work.
The Garden Objective focused on putting mini gardens in classrooms and to teach members about growing their own food. Projects included mini hydroponic systems made of recycled bottles, windowsill garden boxes for teachers’ classrooms, and mushroom bags for teachers whose classrooms get little light, according to the club.
It was an amazing success, with over 50 people showing up to support them. This is the first potluck they’ve held and are hoping to continue this at the end of each objective, which they have three of each year. This year, they’ve chosen to focus on gardening, energy and water conservation, and reducing cafeteria waste, according to Green Team. Club president and sophomore Sophia Valdez said, “It was just such an amazing feeling to see the whole community of, like, people’s parents and our sponsors and things like that come together,” adding that she came away with a positive feeling and is excited about what to do next.
But, in order to create such a large event, lots of planning and promotion had to happen behind the scenes. One group focused on the logistics such as booking the Impact Center and making the slideshow that was presented at the dinner. Closer to the day, the event was posted about on the club’s social media, which garnered many views. Social Media Manager and sophomore Jack Purcell was in charge of posting about the event on the clubs Instagram and Facebook accounts. He posted it about once a day in the lead up to the potluck and shared “I tried to utilize the story feature as much as possible to get as many views as possible.”
Not only did the club talk about their work, they also highlighted students who had put a lot of effort into their groups. These students received an award and the group leaders talked about the contributions they made to their project. Freshman Elsa Conklin, who was nominated for her work on the Homecoming parade float, felt that this award helped her feel more like a part of the club. In addition, she said her favorite part of the project she helped with was “building the cardboard bull modeled after Ferdinand from the kids book.”
Overall, the potluck was a fun way to bond with others and showcase all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes within the club to create change within the school. According to Green Team, the next objective they will work on is the Energy and Water Objective, which includes projects such as an LPEA Partnership, a lights off campaign, and a sustainability summit.
