My Green Dream by Veronika

My Green Dream by Veronika - December 2016 Scholarship Essay

My dad was driving me home from a busy day of school one afternoon, and I was in a talkative, positive mood. The windows were open, and we were blasting my favorite music. As we were driving, the car in front of us rolled down its window and tossed a large McDonald’s bag out the window. My eyes popped out of my head when I witnessed this act; I was in complete disbelief. I asked myself, “why would anyone throw garbage out the window? Could they not throw it in a trash can?” Anger and annoyance rose inside of me. My happy mood dissipated.
I quickly asked my dad,“how could someone do that to our planet?”
“People don’t know any better, Veronika.”
This statement resonated with me. People don’t know any better. The lack of environmental awareness became overwhelming over the next several days as I noticed Kit-Kat wrappers and Coke cans on the Eisenhower Expressway. I reflexively asked, “how did this garbage get here, and why? I became consumed by the pollution I observed in my city and school. I knew deep down that somehow or some way I needed to get involved to end this problem.
The first step I took was joining the Environmental Club at school. Though the club reprocessed the vast amounts of paper and plastic once a week, I felt as though we were not doing enough. With the help of our moderator, we paired with Seven Generations Ahead, a nonprofit foundation whose mission is “to build sustainable and healthy communities.” Our group enthusiastically began an initiative, outlined by Seven Generations, to diminish the food waste in our school’s cafeteria. We were finally empowered to create a cultural environmental shift within our school.
We enacted our plan through modeling, explaining, and supervising the sorting and composting of over 460 student lunches on a daily basis. Students would sort their trash into landfill, recycling, liquid and compost bins. In just one day of implementing this program, we diverted 64.2 pounds of waste from the landfill. It was at this moment when I could look myself in the eye and say that my work was making an impact on helping the earth.
While the results were astounding, there were many challenges our group had to face which involved shifting the perspective of an entire school. Unfortunately, there were many students that showed disinterest and irritation. With these difficulties, I found a new source of motivation. A leader is someone who takes charge and proceeds with courage even though they might experience opposition. I wanted students to carry this change of behavior throughout their time at Trinity, at home, and their lives beyond. Therefore, I stayed motivated by reminding myself how this initiative could impact the environment for years to come.
As the program has been in existence now for an entire school year, I feel a sense of pride. In a time of need, my teammates and I used leadership to make a true impact on the environmental community within Trinity high school. My classmates not only sort their trash correctly during lunch, they also better understand our environment, which is my ultimate goal. I want everyone to care as deeply about the earth as I do.
These days, I do not always drive home from school with my dad (because I have my driver’s license), but I still take time to reflect on the impact I have had that day. I want to continue to make a difference, big or small. Becoming a part of the Environmental Club has taught me what I want to pursue in college and for the rest of my life. I want to continue to carry out the mission I have started at Trinity and major in environmental science. College will be the place that will give me further understanding and knowledge of the deep inner workings of our world that will inspire and challenge me to grow and become involved in endless possibilities. I know I want to make a difference in our world, whether it’s teaching people how they can help, or getting involved in communities around the world.