Green Youth Alliance San Mateo County Launch

The GYA is a nonprofit organization founded by retired Stanford professor Dr. Sue Chow. The organization seeks to connect "green" clubs and organizations from high schools across the

state and eventually the country and world in order to create an ideas-exchange and support network. Similar to the ubiquitous high school Key Clubs, which are backed by Kiwanis International, high school environmental groups are autonomous but affiliated with the GYA network. Connecting these motivated students is essential to experiencing widespread success in greening one's campus and communityat the youth level. By facilitating an exchange of ideas and mutual support, we will avoid "reinventing the wheel," so to speak, as students will be able to learn from their peers' successes and mistakes. Eventually, we would like to create a GYA wiki site that would serve as a manual for all the numerous activities a student group could organize. The ability of anyone to edit this manual will surely lead to great synergistic success. Already, the GYA has been officially supported by the Sierra Club, California State Superintendent of Schools Jack O'Connell, and the State of California Climate Champions Program.

In December, I was approached by Dr. Chow to help lead the organization, which at that point consisted of about five high schools, and I enthusiastically have joined up in their mission. With her, I am planning a launch for San Mateo County high schools on May 6 at which Sen. Leland Yee will speak. I invite you to come and spread word to anyone you know who may be interested. The draft invitation and letter of support from Mr. O'Connell are included in this post.