Gardening for Change Creates Environmental Safe Space
Every other weekend, Gardening for Change holds local trash pickup events to promote environmental awareness.
Del Norte’s Gardening for Change is a club of young community activists. Through podcasts on community and global issues, Gardening for Change keeps members globally aware. Through organized events like trash pickups, Gardening for Change strives to make a difference in the community by empowering their members through education and group discussions.
“We aim to support our members in a way that feels like a meeting is just a group of friends who chat about important issues while trying to make a difference,” said club president, Anneliese Peerbolte (’22).
In these socially-distanced trash pickup events, Gardening for Change members pick up trash with trash bags and gloves, listen to music, and chat with other members. After each event, members document what was collected and share it to inspire others outside the club to do the same.
Peerbolte stresses the importance of these events. She notes that many teenagers struggle with the desire to make a difference and the feeling that they are not making a large impact. This trash pickup event lets teens see their community become cleaner.
The club also creates podcasts focused on global, local, social, and environmental issues and ways to fix them. In their first episode of the series, club leaders talk with Dr. Casey Domingez on the importance of voting. They discuss why voting matters, why so many young adults do not vote, and what efforts can be made to prevent that.
Their upcoming podcast will feature BSU student Olivia Rollins discussing how to achieve racial equality through social media and why it is important to fight for racial justice in one’s own community.
Once it is deemed safe to go back on campus, Gardening for Change also hopes to create a Del Norte garden.
If you are interested in attending a trash pickup event, listening to their newest podcast visit, or working in the future garden, visit their website: