Lessons in going green
By Maria Scrivani
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Park School senior Jud Heussler.
Photo by kc kratt. |
Heussler, seventeen, is a senior at the Park School of Buffalo, which he is personally committed to making a greener place. He’s also on a mission to enlist younger children on what the school’s Ecology Club calls its Green Team. “I try to think of how I can do my part, and help others do theirs,” says the Snyder resident. “To see that this is the right thing to do, not just because it’s currently popular.” He joined the Ecology Club as a Park ninth-grader, and became president the next year, with the goal of reinvigorating an unexciting extracurricular activity. Today the club sponsors an annual competitive paper drive. (This year the eighth grade, which amassed over two and a half tons of paper, was announced the winner of a pizza party at a raucous all-school assembly.) A twice-yearly campus clean-up is a popular event, students are helping the maintenance staff collect recycling bins, and kids are joining with adults to figure out cost-effective ways to get that Styrofoam out of the lunchroom.
Going green is not only good, it’s also good fun, thanks in large part to the unflagging enthusiasm of Heussler. He claims it’s not that hard to do. For example, he cites the annual Country Fair, a Park School fall tradition that features homemade chili served by members of the senior class. This year the chili service included forks and bowls made of potato starch—“a little more expensive, but worth it.” Cost is often cited as a deterrent in consideration of going green, but Heussler is undeterred. He has become a master of creative fundraising. There is the tried-and-true rummage sale at school, an idea that has certainly withstood the test of time. In addition, the Park Ecology Club has raised money through sale of recycled-paper notecards, featuring campus scenes selected from a schoolwide photo contest. They have contracted with a paper retriever to earn money on recycled paper collected. They are selling Green Team T-shirts, printed on organic cotton. There are plans to buy a new composter to be used in the Park greenhouse, and also, eventually, as soil-enriching material that might be sold.
“We’re planning to collect rain water in barrels to use for watering our greenhouse plants,” Heussler says, the ideas flowing like beneficent rain. With several other Park students, he participated in an environmental summit for high schoolers this year. Facilitated by Buffalo State College students, the program included a strategic-planning process in which students could hone their green ideas in terms of feasibility and impact, and find ways to make them happen. The Park kids focused on recycling efforts, which led to the buzz-generating paper drive. “What can we do now to instill interest in younger kids so the green efforts will continue?” Heussler asks. Mini-projects, like cell phone and inkjet cartridge recycling bins at school, are easy ways to get everyone thinking about the issues.
When he’s not on the green pulpit, Heussler works part time at the Snyder Pharmacy. He sits on the Amherst Youth Board, and is business manager and assistant editor of his school yearbook. Next fall, he’s off to college, where he plans to major in broadcasting. If energy and optimism are predictors of success, expect to hear more from this young man. “I don’t think it’s too late to so something about global warming,” he says. “Really, it’s so easy to go green.”
Writer Maria Scrivani is a native of Buffalo with an interest in local history and people who make a difference.
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