Brower Youth Awards

All Winners

Search through the archive of all 24 years of Brower Youth Awards winners and their projects.

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All winners sorted by awards year

Riya Chandra

Hastings-on-Hudson, New York

Winning year: 2023

Getting Black and Brown girls outdoors

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William Charouhis

Miami, Florida

Winning year: 2023

Advocating for mangrove restoration in coastal areas

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Maanit Goel

Sammamish, Washington

Winning year: 2023

Speaking up for orcas

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Katherine Martínez Medina

Vieques, Puerto Rico

Winning year: 2023

Promoting food sovereignty and mutual aid

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Muskan Walia

Salt Lake City, Utah

Winning year: 2023

Ushering in a clean energy transition in Utah schools

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Angelina Xu

Clarksburg, Maryland

Winning year: 2023

Tackling food waste at schools

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Ilana Cohen

Boston, Massachusetts

Winning year: 2022

Organizing for Fossil Fuel Divestment

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Lauren U.C. Ejiaga

New Orleans, Louisiana

Winning year: 2022

Supporting STEM Education in Louisiana

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Amara Ifeji

Bangor, Maine

Winning year: 2022

Bringing New Voices into
the Environmental Movement

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Raghav Kalyanaraman

Plano, Texas

Winning year: 2022

Restoring the North Texas
Prairie Ecosystem

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Hamid Torabzadeh

Long Beach, California

Winning year: 2022

Advancing Disaster Preparedness and Environmental Justice

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Annika Weber

Seattle, Washington

Winning year: 2022

Pushing for Carbon Neutrality

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David Baldwin

Fort Lauderdale, FL

Winning year: 2021

Seeking Solutions to Invasive Weeds

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Alexandria Gordon

St. Petersburg, FL

Winning year: 2021

Inspiring Campuses to Go Plastic-Free

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Alexia Leclercq

Austin, TX

Winning year: 2021

Bridging the Gap Between Climate Education and Action

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Sonja Michaluk

Princeton, NJ

Winning year: 2021

Encouraging Rigorous Citizen Science

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Peter Pham

San Jose, CA

Winning year: 2021

Advocating for Transit Justice

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Artemisio Romero y Carver

Santa Fe, NM

Winning year: 2021

Pushing for Smart Climate Policy

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Danielle Boyer

Troy, MI

Winning year: 2020

Bringing STEAM Education to Indigenous Youth

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Alexandra Collins

Hinsdale, IL

Winning year: 2020

Battling Cancer-Causing Air Pollution

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Haana Edenshaw

Haida Gwaii

Winning year: 2020

Suing Canada for Its Role in the Climate Crisis

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Diego Arreola Fernández

Mexico City, Mexico

Winning year: 2020

Fostering Environmental Activism in Mexico

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Chander Payne

Bethesda, MD

Winning year: 2020

Helping Marginalized Youth Grow Food

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Isabella Wallmow

Andover, MN

Winning year: 2020

Creating a Healing Space for Incarcerated Youth

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Isha Clarke

Oakland, CA

Winning year: 2019

Fighting the development of a coal plant in West Oakland

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Mackenzie Feldman

Honolulu, HI

Winning year: 2019

Working to ban pesticides in schools

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Lia Harel

Minnetonka, MN

Winning year: 2019

Organizing a youth environmental movement in Minnesota

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Isra Hirsi

Minneapolis, MN

Winning year: 2019

Leading a nationwide climate strike

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Shannon Lisa

Avenel, NJ

Winning year: 2019

Investigating chemicals that lead to cancer

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Tammy Ramos

Los Angeles, CA

Winning year: 2019

Challenging oil refinery pollution in a low income community

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Jade Sweeney

Jacksonville, NC

Winning year: 2018

Supporting our key pollinators

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Mishka Banuri

Salt Lake City, UT

Winning year: 2018

Intersectional organizing for climate justice

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Rose Whipple

St. Paul, MN

Winning year: 2018

Speaking up against oil pipelines on Indigenous lands

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Stephen O’Hanlon

Downingtown, PA

Winning year: 2018

Communicating the need for political action

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Tina Oh

Sackville, New Brunswick

Winning year: 2018

Amplifying narratives of frontline communities

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photo of a woman in an urban environment

Valeree Catangay

Long Beach, CA

Winning year: 2018

Advocating for a more inclusive environmental movement

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Anthony Torres

Babylon, NY

Winning year: 2017

Inspiring communities to demand climate action

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Charlie Jiang

Washington D.C.

Winning year: 2017

Pushing Wall Street to make just investments

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Dejah Powell

Chicago, IL

Winning year: 2017

Fostering a love for the environment

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Anne Lee

Sammamish, WA

Winning year: 2017

Challenging schools to adopt low carbon solutions

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Dineen O’Rourke

East Quogue, NY

Winning year: 2017

Encouraging non-violent, direct action

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Mercedes Thompson and Claire Wayner

Baltimore, MD

Winning year: 2017

Working towards a plastic-free Maryland

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Photo Courtesy of Storyline Media

Heidi Kritz

Dillingham, AK

Winning year: 2016

Fueling a decade-long fight to protect Bristol Bay

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Photo Courtesy of Storyline Media

Erica Davis

Knoxville, TN

Winning year: 2016

Advocating for frontline communities in Tennessee

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Photo Courtesy of Storyline Media

Susette Onate

Hialeah, FL

Winning year: 2016

Fostering stewardship through a native butterfly garden

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Karina Gonzalez

Flagstaff, AZ

Winning year: 2016

Leading inclusive divestment efforts in Arizona

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Photo Courtesy of Storyline Media

Xerxes Libsch

White Plains, NY

Winning year: 2016

Restoring and creating an educational wild space

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Photo Courtesy of Storyline Media

Will Amos

Irvine, CA

Winning year: 2016

Engineering possibility for impactful change

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Celeste Tinajero

Sparks, NV

Winning year: 2015

Making impactful and lasting changes through greening a high school campus

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Ryan Camero

Stockton, CA

Winning year: 2015

Using creative storytelling to chronicle a fragile delta and the communities that surround it

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Kate Weiner

White Plains, NY

Winning year: 2015

Creating an alternative space for environmental media through a student-run arts collective

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Dyanna Jaye

Charlottesville, VA

Winning year: 2015

Mobilizing a civically engaged environmental youth coalition

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Jess Grady-Benson

Claremont, CA

Winning year: 2015

Fostering fossil fuel divestment campaigns on college campuses through student training

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JP Viñals

Bronx, NY

Winning year: 2015

Energizing a campaign for urban green spaces through youth engagement

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Sean Russell

North Port, FL

Winning year: 2014

Launching an educational campaign about marine debris

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Doorae Shin

Honolulu, HI

Winning year: 2014

Working towards a ban on Styrofoam use in Hawai‘i

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Tsechu Dolma

Woodside, NY

Winning year: 2014

Creating a model for sustainable food security in Upper Mustang, Nepal

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Jackson Koeppel

Highland Park, MI

Winning year: 2014

Building community resilience through solar powered infrastructure

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Lynnea Shuck

Fremont, CA

Winning year: 2014

Propelling childhood curiosity into lasting environmental stewardship

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Tiffany Carey

Detroit, MI

Winning year: 2014

Engaging youth in solutions-based, citizen-science projects

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Amira Odeh

San Juan, PR

Winning year: 2013

Fostering sustainable water consumption at the University of Puerto Rico’s Rio Piedras campus

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Chloe Maxmin

Nobleboro, ME

Winning year: 2013

Challenging one of the oldest higher education institutions in the U.S. to divest from fossil fuels

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Cassandra Lin

Westerly, RI

Winning year: 2013

Connecting the dots between community needs and biofuel waste for an unconventional solution

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Alex Freid

Durham, NH

Winning year: 2013

Launching resourceful student led programs on college campuses to reduce waste and encourage reuse

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Jonathan Ferrer

Brooklyn, NY

Winning year: 2013

Generating climate awareness and resiliency amongst New York City's youth

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Arielle Klagsbrun

St. Louis, MO

Winning year: 2013

Mobilizing communities to create a healthy future free of dependence on big coal

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Jacob Glass

Glastonbury, CT

Winning year: 2012

Documenting grassroots wilderness protection efforts in Montana's Scotchman Peaks

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Maya Salsedo

Santa Cruz, CA

Winning year: 2012

Empowering youth with powerful tools to advocate for a just food system

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Asa Needle

Worcester, MA

Winning year: 2012

Addressing lead contamination in inner-city neighborhoods

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Ryland King

Goleta, CA

Winning year: 2012

Sparking creative environmental engagement amongst elementary school students

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Martin Figueroa

Los Angeles, CA

Winning year: 2012

Inspiring campus-wide water conservation in California's arid Central Valley

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Brittany Stallworth

Washington, DC

Winning year: 2012

Fostering an ethos of health & wellbeing through student activism in her Howard University community

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Junior Walk

Whitesville, WV

Winning year: 2011

Challenging big coal's power in Appalachia

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Kyle Thiermann

Santa Cruz, CA

Winning year: 2011

Surfing for global change

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Tania Pulido

Richmond, CA

Winning year: 2011

Cultivating green spaces for healthy neighborhoods

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Rhiannon Tomtishen & Madison Vorva

Ann Arbor, MI

Winning year: 2011

Campaigning for orangutan habitat protection

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Alexander Epstein

Philadelphia, PA

Winning year: 2011

Empowering equitable community growth in Philadelphia

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Victor Davila

Bronx, NY

Winning year: 2011

Activating youth engagement through skateboarding

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Misra Walker

Bronx, NY

Winning year: 2010

Lobbying for access to green spaces in Hunts Point

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Varsha Vijay

Coralville, IA

Winning year: 2010

Capturing and sharing knowledge to preserve Waorani land and culture

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Ana Elisa Peréz-Quintero

San Juan, PR

Winning year: 2010

Leading a network of environmental education programs in Puerto Rico

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De’Anthony Jones

San Francisco, CA

Winning year: 2010

Through the group Environmental Service Learning Initiative (ESLI), an organization that works in seven public high schools in San Francisco, De’Anthony has worked to connect social justice and g...

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Marcus Grignon

Keshena, WI

Winning year: 2010

Encouraging sustainability on the Menominee Reservation

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Freya Chay

Kenai, AK

Winning year: 2010

In September 2009, Freya learned that the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly had passed a resolution supporting the idea of exempting renewable energy systems from real property tax assessments. But ...

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Hai Vo

Irvine, CA

Winning year: 2009

Hai Vo co-founded the Real Food Challenge (RFC) at the University of California at Irvine (UCI) after he radically tra...

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Adarsha Shivakumar

Pleasant Hill, CA

Winning year: 2009

Adarsha recognized the complex relationship between the economy and the environment. In December of 2007, he co-founded Projec...

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Diana Lopez

San Antonio, TX

Winning year: 2009

Diana Lopez organizes with the Southwest Workers Union for worker rights, environmental justi...

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Alec Loorz

Ventura, CA

Winning year: 2009

Alec first saw Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” when he was 12 years old. Inspired by the message, Alec wrote to the organization and applied to be a presenter, but was den...

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Sierra Crane-Murdoch

Middlebury, VT

Winning year: 2009

Sierra co-founded Power Past Coal along with forty grassroots activists personally impacted by the mining, processing...

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Robin Bryan

Winnipeg, MB

Winning year: 2009

Robin lives in close proximity to the world’s largest single land storehouse of carbon and most abundant source of fresh water, the boreal forest of the East Shore Wilderness Area in Manitoba, Ca...

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Ivan Stiefel

Mullica Hill, NJ

Winning year: 2008

Ivan spearheaded the creation of an alternative spring break for university students to stand in solidarity with communities affected by coal industry abuses in Appalachia. In 2007, the...

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Phebe Meyers

Woodstock, VT

Winning year: 2008

Growing up, Phebe noticed fewer songbirds at her Vermont feeders each year and became inspired to find the cause. The answer lay in the deforested pastures of Costa Rica that were once stunning r...

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Kari Fulton

Washington, DC

Winning year: 2008

Kari worked on two different environmental justice projects that connect and inspire people on both the local and national levels. On the local level, she co-founded the Loving Our City, Loving O...

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Timothy DenHerder-Thomas

St. Paul, MN

Winning year: 2008

Timothy demonstrated that climate solutions are bold opportunities for economic profit and community building as opposed to personal sacrifices. He spearheaded the creation of the ...

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Jessie-Ruth Corkins

Bristol, VT

Winning year: 2008

Jessie-Ruth is the core leader of the Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative (VSHI), a group of students representing 200...

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Marisol Becerra

Chicago, IL

Winning year: 2008

In 2003, Marisol volunteered with Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) to map and inventory ...

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Jon Warnow

Burlington, VT

Winning year: 2007

Jon’s passion for tackling the Earth’s climate crisis was the basis for his role in Step It Up 2007. This project used the Internet to stage a highly coordinated National Day of Climate Actio...

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Carlos Moreno

Boston, MA

Winning year: 2007

Carlos understood the seriousness of youth violence as an environmental justice issue because of its tremendous impact on where and how we live. In 2001, the state funding for after school progra...

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Alexander Lin

Westerly, RI

Winning year: 2007

In 2004, Alex read an alarming Wall Street Journal article about the growing E-Waste crisis. When he was nine, Alex had co-created a community service team called ...

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Q’orianka Kilcher

Santa Monica, CA

Winning year: 2007

Q’orianka is a filmmaker and actress of Peruvian ancestry who has used her celebrity to draw attention to pressing human rights and environmental injustices. Of special concern to her was Los A...

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Erica Fernandez

Oxnard, CA

Winning year: 2007

When Erica found out that a liquefied natural gas facility was proposed for the coast of Oxnard and Malibu with a 36-inch pipeline routed through low-income neighborhoods, she was outraged. She wor...

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Rachel Barge

Berkeley, CA

Winning year: 2007

Rachel was an avid contributor to various environmental initiatives at the University of California, Berkeley beginning in her freshman year. She realized that one underlying factor preventing he...

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Ruben Vogt

El Paso, TX

Winning year: 2006

http://academics.utep.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=24338 Ruben believed that students are most...

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Elissa Smith

Ottawa, Ontario

Winning year: 2006

http://elissasmith.ca/ Elissa witnessed firsthand the impact climate change had on her hometown environment: the Gre...

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Alberta Nells

Flagstaff, AZ

Winning year: 2006

http://www.savethepeaks.org A youth leader of the Navajo Nation, Alberta worked with Youth of the Peaks to mob...

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Karoline Evin McMullen

Chesterland, OH

Winning year: 2006

http://www.saveourstream.org/ Evin grew up playing in rivers and streams and gained first-hand knowledge abou...

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May Boeve

Middlebury, VT

Winning year: 2006

May Boeve led Middlebury College’s action-oriented environmental and social justice group, the “Sunday Night Group”. In January 2005, May was inspired by “What Works: Building t...

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Jessica Assaf

San Rafael, CA

Winning year: 2006

Jessica was shocked to learn that many personal care products contain chemicals that have been linked to cancer and reproductive ailments. Working with the Teens for Safe Cosmetics Campaign, Jess...

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Zander Srodes

Placidia, FL

Winning year: 2005

When Zander was not sailing or golfing in his hometown of Placidia, Florida, he was doing everything he could to save the loggerhead sea turtles from extinction, reptiles which weigh up to 350 poun...

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La Constance Shahid

San Francisco, CA

Winning year: 2005

http://www.lejyouth.org/youth_slough.php4 La Constance Shahid was a breath of fresh air in her inner-city San Fr...

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Daniel Rosen

Flagstaff, AZ

Winning year: 2005

http://www.nativemovement.org In 2003 Daniel traveled to the Navajo Reservation in Pinon, Arizona to attend ...

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Jessica Rimington

Cotuit, MA

Winning year: 2005

http://www.oneworldyouthproject.org At 19, Jessica Rimington visited South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, M...

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Andrea Garza

Albuquerque, NM

Winning year: 2005

Andrea was only thirteen years old when she founded Esperanza Unida, a group focused on social and environmental justice issues in Brownsville, Texas, where she grew up. The group began its politic...

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Kayla Carpenter & Erika Chase

Hoopa, CA

Winning year: 2005

Friends since the fourth grade, Erika and Kayla were always active in their hometown of 4,000 people. They both worked on their school yearbook, participated in the Youth Tribal Council, and organi...

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Shadia Wood

New York, NY

Winning year: 2004

http://www.kidsagainstpollution.net At age seven, Shadia attended a kids’ conference on Superfund si...

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Christina Wong

Sacramento, CA

Winning year: 2004

http://www.ecovote.org/index.html Alarmed by the rollback of environmental protection laws, Christina Won...

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Eugene Pearson

Boulder, CO

Winning year: 2004

When a budget crisis forced the state to cut funds to its schools, University of Colorado officials approached the student council to ask for a fee hike crucial to financing construction of four ne...

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Billy Parish

New Haven, CT

Winning year: 2004

After dropping out of Yale in early 2003, Billy Parish rallied students at hundreds of colleges around the Northeast to take on global warming. The Climate Campaign was aimed at getting colleges ...

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Hannah McHardy

Seattle, WA

Winning year: 2004

When Hannah McHardy’s family moved to the Pacific Northwest from Arkansas, Hannah fell in love with the forests of her new home. When she learned that western Washington’s schools were largely ...

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Lily Dong

South Pasadena, CA

Winning year: 2004

Born in China, Lily came to Southern California with her family when she was ten. In seventh grade, Lily began what became a four-year crusade to protect and restore the last remaining undeveloped ...

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Thomas Nichols

Corrales, NM

Winning year: 2003

In junior high school, Thomas conceived and implemented a program to preserve the fragile Rio Grande ecosystem by wrapping chicken wire around threatened cottonwood trees to protect them from beave...

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Illai Kenney

Jonesboro, GA

Winning year: 2003

http://www.kidsagainstpollution.net Illai co-founded Georgia Kids Against Pollution in response to the...

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Andrew Hunt

Bethesda, MD

Winning year: 2003

Andrew established a statewide network of student environmental activists transforming the state’s college and high school environmental clubs into a united force to affect public policy in M...

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Whitney Cushing

Homer, AK

Winning year: 2003

http://www.akcenter.org/take_action/youth_action.html In a state known for its hostil...

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Andrew Azman

Owings Mills, MD

Winning year: 2003

http://www.cubiodiesel.org Andrew founded CU Biodiesel, working to switch the bus fleets of the University of Colorad...

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Rachel Ackoff

Claremont, CA

Winning year: 2003

As the Fair Trade Campaign Coordinator for the Sierra Student Coalition, Rachel organized a series of trainings to give student and adult activists across the country the tools to work for a global...

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Nathan Wyeth

Chevy Chase, MD

Winning year: 2002

Nathan co-founded and chaired the Sierra Student Coalition’s Student Action on the Global Economy (SAGE) Program, created in response to the environmental threats posed by the current model o...

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Ethan Schaffer

Sagle, ID

Winning year: 2002

http://www.OrganicVolunteers.com Ethan created Organic Volunteers, a national outreach and education prog...

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Amir Nadav

Eagan, MN

Winning year: 2002

High school junior Amir Nadav initiated and led a campaign to reduce Minnesota students’ exposure to dangerous diesel exhaust. His efforts culminated in the passage of statewide legislation t...

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Stefanie Lacy

Bandera, TX

Winning year: 2002

Stefanie Lacy knew that Bandera, Texas, was more than just a cowboy town that cared about ranching and rodeos. So in the self-proclaimed “Cowboy Capital of the World,” this determined h...

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Max Harper

Hotchkiss, CO

Winning year: 2002

Max Harper developed a Sustainable Living Theme House at Colorado College to engage students and administrators in environmental sustainability and to build a community epicenter of campus activism...

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Jessian Choy

Santa Cruz, CA

Winning year: 2002

Jessian Choy founded the Student Environmental Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz, to promote ongoing campus greening on a variety of issue...

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Grayson Schleppegrell

Charleston, SC

Winning year: 2001

As a fifth-grader, Grayson emerged as a leader in a national campaign to rescue endangered swordfish populations off the eastern United States, which were threatened with commercial extinction by i...

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Heide Iravani

Charlotte, NC

Winning year: 2001

Heide founded and led a school-based chapter of the environmental group Free the Planet!, serving as a local organizer in a market-based campaign to protect forests in the southeast United States f...

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Robert Fish

Bar Harbor, ME

Winning year: 2001

Rob successfully led campus activists in a market-based, non-violent direct action campaign against retailers of old-growth and endangered forest products. He then turned their attention to the pra...

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Jared Duval

Lebanon, NH

Winning year: 2001

In his junior year, Jared founded and coordinated Students for a Sustainable Future. The group was involved in a number of issues, including global warming, composting, and recycling. As a senior, ...

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Angela Coryell

Baring, WA

Winning year: 2001

As part of a high school communications class, Angela came up with the idea for, produced, and directed an award-winning documentary film called An Oily Sky, chronicling the history and hazards of ...

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Deland Chan

New York City, NY

Winning year: 2001

Deland undertook the restoration of the Native Species Garden in Inwood Hill Park, the last nine acres of natural forest in Manhattan.

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Bethany Larue

Groveport, OH

Winning year: 2000

Bethany's passion helped to save a delicate six-acre wooded wetland.

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Ariana Katovich

Berkeley, CA

Winning year: 2000

Ariana created an innovative fund on her campus to protect and restore shorelines.

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Dave Karpf

Philadelphia, PA

Winning year: 2000

Dave's dynamic leadership in the Sierra Student Coalition inspired young environmentalists through the United States.

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Matt Ewing

Chicago, IL

Winning year: 2000

Matt successfully mobilized college students to press Iowa legislators to get informed about critical environmental issues.

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Tamica Davis

Dorchester, MA

Winning year: 2000

Tamica organized a march to raise awareness about the impact of poor air quality on community health.

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Barbara Brown

Victoria, TX

Winning year: 2000

Barbara launched the "Don't Be Crude" program collecting over 6000 gallons of used oil and hydraulic fluid.

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