Northern High School
Attending: Durham Technical Community College
Environmental and horticulture advocate

My passion is the environment. I want to protect our planet as much as possible to insure a future for everyone. When I first learned about the climate crisis as a child I was terrified. I want to be able to live in a habitable world, and I want the same for generations to come. When I began middle school I realized that I didn’t just have to live in fear of impending doom, I could do something about it. I have several projects I’m working on to do just that.

At my school I started our first compost program. Waste reduction is extremely important to me, so every item I can prevent from going to a landfill is a big win for me. Every Wednesday and Friday I collect food waste from our culinary department, and paper waste from our chorus department and mix it all together in my big compost pile in the courtyard. I am working on teaching the culinary department on how to maintain the pile on their own so that when I graduate Northern High School will still be able to reduce their waste.
I am the President of my school's environmental club where we work on projects that make our school a greener place. Currently we are putting together a competition that will award classrooms for their good recycling habits. Another thing we advocate for is solar panels. Our goal is to have solar panels at our new campus. We’re facing lots of pushback from the school board but I believe that one day all of Durham Public Schools will be powered by renewable energy. On weekends our group will often meetup to do litter pickups at a nearby city park. I am very passionate about horticulture as well. I believe that maintaining healthy plant systems is one of the best ways to help our planet, so in my freetime I maintain native flower gardens at my school. These gardens serve the students by providing a beautiful environment, while also serving native insects that need native plants to survive. This summer I had the opportunity to hone my horticultural skills by working as an intern for the Hub Farm, an educational farm run by my school district. My job was maintaining the large vegetable garden and taking care of the animals. This was an extremely rewarding experience for me and I hope to work at more educational farms in the future.
Outside of school I attend volunteer groups such as the North Carolina Conservation Corps where I do jobs such as trail maintenance and taking care of community gardens. I am also a member of the Museum of Life and Science’s Youth Climate Summit Teen Advisory Board. This is a biweekly meeting where high school students plan a climate summit. This summit will have attendees from all across North Carolina, where they will have the opportunity to learn about climate change and ways to address it in their schools and communities. I’m about to enter college and I couldn’t be more excited. I know that college will give me more opportunities and connections to do great things. I can’t wait to see what the future brings and what I can accomplish.