Keeping a green thumb through E-Club

Saving the planet from within the school

President+Jacqueline+Hernandez+and+vice+president+Jennifer+Saldivar+welcome+members+to+the+environmental+club+on+Tuesday%2C+August+28.

Stephany Jara

President Jacqueline Hernandez and vice president Jennifer Saldivar welcome members to the environmental club on Tuesday, August 28.

The environmental club serves to spread awareness about the importance of recycling, conservation and preservation. Tuesdays, during A block in room D212, members will be keeping their Adopt-A-Spot, a free community program which encourages citizens to keep certain public areas clean, litter-free as well as discussing events regarding Keep Lewisville Beautiful, field trips and future meetups.

“With the club, we are hoping to have people more aware of the environment, like thinking twice before they put a water bottle in a trash can,” senior vice president Jennifer Saldivar said. “That just ends up in the landfill and animals could get harmed by it so we’re hoping to raise awareness and also keep Lewisville cleaner.”

The club will be organizing care packages for pets in need, local trash clean ups in places like LISDOLA and LLELA, and will be participating in the district’s adopt-an-angel. In addition, senior club president Jacqueline Hernandez looks to start a community garden.

“I would love to start a local garden that students can be in charge of so they can learn about growing plants,” Hernandez said. “There would be other benefits to the garden as it would be able to open up to the public.”

Students are able to help the environment whether or not they are members of environmental club; all students have access to recycling bins in every classroom as well as a battery recollection box in the teacher’s lounge available for student use.

“Anybody can come and drop off batteries because you do not want any batteries to get in the ground, ground water or soil,” club sponsor Cheryl Monaghan said. “The acid will grow in and kill everything so we are also recycling cell phone batteries – just regular A, B, C, D batteries – to try and help [prevent] that too.”

The club presidents are not only hoping for additional members this year, but for more involvement from club members in local trash clean ups and recycling initiatives.

“Most of what I want to get done with this club is spread awareness,” Hernandez said. “We live in a highly industrialized area. It’s very easy to forget [how important] the environment is and how it keeps us alive and we don’t do anything in return.”