On April 22, Earth Day was celebrated in over 192 countries worldwide. Many communities throughout San Diego had unique activities to celebrate, including at BVH. On April 23-25, BVH’s Green Team, an environmentalist club, hosted three different activities throughout what they called Earth Week. This was Green Team’s way to spread awareness of various types of activism and sustainability throughout the campus.
Green Team president and senior Aalyiah Victoria describes one of Green Teams lunchtime activities, the succulent station. This station was coupled with an educational sorting system in which a Green Team member would help a student place an assortment of trash in the correct type of waste bin.
“The succulent workshop is a sort of come-and-go station, we have succulents available along with some jars, gravel and soil. The sorting game helps spread awareness on how to sort our trash properly. These fun activities are here to help our community get interested in how we can help our planet,” said Victoria.
Green Team Service Chair and senior Lyra Rhoades further elaborates on how this activity helps support their mission. Rhoades was helping run the sorting station as well as the succulent station during lunch, and explains what the turnout was for these activities.
“A lot of the succulents are cuttings or leftovers from other plants and displaying that they can be replanted so simply, is a way of promoting the idea of reusing and a love of the environment,” said Rhoades.
Showcasing a different way to promote sustainability through everyday practice, Green Team hosted a thrift shop during lunch the following day. With the clothing sectioned out by garment type, the shop was made easily skimmable resulting in good profit. Green Team’s Vice President and senior Marvin Canton explains the fluctuation in the size of the group the thrift shop reaches over the years.
“This year’s shop was definitely bigger than the ones held in the past. At the beginning there was a room filled with people that was kind of back to the levels we received when this idea first debuted a couple of years ago,” Canton said.
This successful thrift shop isn’t an easy feat to achieve, even for a successful club like Green Team, it takes not only large contributions from the officers but also their club advisor Jennifer Ekstien. Rhoades describes the process it took for a successful workshop to occur.
“These clothing sections were organized by types of clothing on the lab tables lining Ekstien’s room. The shop is typically outside but was moved inside due to the weather. Students from Ekstein’s classes donated, as well as Mardahl and Ekstein themselves,” Rhoades said.
BVH’s native plant garden is known as the butterfly garden. Canton explains that one of the goals for the thrift shop mirrored those of the succulent garden, but took a different approach to reach the concept of sustainability. He further mentions raising money for the butterfly garden.
“There were two goals of the thrift shop. The first goal is to raise money for the butterfly garden so we can clean it up and beautify it. The second goal is to promote shopping sustainably within your community,” Canton said.
Through an Earth Week celebration, Green Team showed a vast amount of students fun ways to live sustainably. Victoria describes how this is one of their main goals of Green Team and elaborates further on what the club aims to achieve.
“The main message the green team always aims to spread is sustainability as well as love and protection of our earth. This week of activities allowed us to reach further than our typical events and we were also able to advertise for future events throughout the year,” Victoria said.
