A guest blog post by Erin Schrode of Teens Turning Green, host of the Project Green Challenge.
Have you ever felt as if you wanted to ‘do something,’ but didn’t know where to start? Project Green Challenge is that chance, your entry point into action and sustainability. Our upcoming 30-day eco lifestyle Challenge is mobilizing high school and college students nationwide through fun, simple, and high impact daily steps. We challenge you to complete themed actions each day in October. Can you do it? Can you take your life from conventional to conscious?
I am proud to say that Project Green Challenge (PGC) is an initiative of youth, by youth, for youth! Our team of more than fifteen interns, staff, partners, and a number of newly-appointed PGC campus reps has spent the last four months working tirelessly to develop the program structure, corporate and non-profit partnerships, and our multimedia platform. We have spoken with hundreds of high schools, colleges, and universities about grounding this initiative, incorporating the Challenge into campus culture, extracurriculars, even curriculum.
Involve your campus – because this is a nationwide competition for schools too. Win an on-campus Sustainability 101 event, eco resource fair, organic lunch for leadership council, ice cream party, green cleaning supplies, and consultation with Teens Turning Green to set your school on a greener path. This is the beginning of a dynamic, collective, student-led movement to shift the paradigm!
We are using social and traditional media, a robust digital platform, and strong on-campus presence to bring the Challenge to you, into the hands of our generation. As a twenty-year-old, I fully understand the need for relevant themes and straight-forward actions to ensure the Challenge is accessible to young people and has maximum impact.
Bottom line: I want to empower YOU. I want to inform and inspire, showing my peers that small changes in our daily actions really can have a positive effect on our health and the environment.
Sign up to take the 30-day eco lifestyle Challenge and we will deliver the daily challenges directly to your inbox, complete with resources, tips, a glossary, experts, videos, and more. When it is this simple and high impact, there’s no excuse for you not to join the movement to change the world – and spread the word far and wide!
Delve deeper, become more engaged, complete the green, greener, and greenest levels of daily challenges, share your experiences with our audience – and you might just earn yourself a spot in the Challenge Finals! Ten finalists will be flown to San Francisco for an educational and inspiring two-day eco summit, which we have titled Green University.
You could win some really phenomenal prizes too! A $5000 college scholarship, $1000 gift card for Whole Foods Market, weekend trip for two to southern California, bicycle courtesy of Natracare, full eco dorm or room makeover, year’s supply of Nature’s Path breakfast and snack foods, organic and ethical clothing, natural body products, and much much more.
We aim to raise awareness about conscious living, informed consumption, and the collective impact of individual actions, as well as empower students with actionable steps for their own lives. Help us get the word out! If we all take the Challenge and commit to being the change we wish to see in the world, then yes, we can build a powerful, diverse, and far-reaching movement that inspires this generation to lead the transition from conventional to conscious and sustain our world.
Who am I? Who are we? Good question! Read on:
Erin Schrode is a young ecoRenaissance woman. As the “face of the new green generation,” the co-founder and spokeswoman of Teens Turning Green promotes global sustainability, youth leadership, environmental education, and conscious lifestyle choices. After working in disaster response in Haiti, she founded and launched The Schoolbag, a youth education project to provide tools and materials for students in need, as well as initiate active citizenry and environmental stewardship. Erin is a media personality, sharing her knowledge as an eco expert on television and the radio, in books, newspapers, magazines, websites, podcasts, and her own ecoRenaissance blog and twitter feed. She is US Ambassador to the leading global youth forum, One Young World, and speaks frequently, serves on panels, and hosts events, shows, conferences, summits, and videos to raise public awareness about environmental and social responsibility for individuals, schools, and communities. Erin just completed her second year as a DEANS Scholar at New York University, studying abroad in the Middle East and West Africa.
Teens Turning Green is a student led movement devoted to education and advocacy around environmentally and socially responsible choices for individuals, schools, and communities. TTG seeks to promote global sustainability by identifying and eliminating toxic exposures that permeate daily life, often unknowingly, yet threaten public and environmental health. What began in California in 2005 now has a presence at elementary, middle and high schools, universities, and student organizations across the United States, as well as a strong virtual platform and media presence. Chapters nationwide lead grassroots efforts that aim to raise awareness, encourage behavior change, and lobby for policy that will lessen local and global impact.