Two Students Create a Club Dedicated to the Restoration of a Local Greenhouse

Introduction

On October 17, we, Student Unit, had the amazing opportunity to interview the co-founders of a new growing club (literally, they grow plants!) known as the Greenhouse Initiative. The Greenhouse Initiative is a school-based club that aims to provide students with ways in which they can contribute to improving the local environment through a multitude of activities. In addition, the Greenhouse Initiative hopes to promote environmental sustainability, while also encouraging students to become the “drivers of change” for the environment and within the community.

About the Greenhouse Initiative

The inspiration for the Greenhouse Initiative emerged when one of the co-founders, Ethan, was made aware of an unused greenhouse located near his school during a conversation with a teacher. Upon hearing this new piece of information, Ethan believed that the greenhouse, if restored, could have a positive impact not only on the environment, but on the local students as well. With a new goal of repairing the greenhouse in mind, Ethan reached out to Eesa, a friend of Ethan who has had extensive experience with gardening and planting. After a couple months of planning and coordinating with school officials, Ethan and Eesa were able to form a new club that they now call the Greenhouse Initiative! From there, Eesa and Ethan focused on raising awareness for their new project and began to search for a collaborative group of students to help lead their club.

Currently, the Greenhouse Initiative is made up of a team of officers including two co-presidents, a vice president, a secretary, a treasurer, a media manager, and two master gardeners. The team of officers are responsible for leading and planning out a number of events for members of the club.

What the Greenhouse Initiative Does

As of right now, one of the Greenhouse Initiative’s main focuses is on the restoration of the unused greenhouse near their High School. In fact, for their first event, the Greenhouse Initiative led a clean up for the greenhouse. Now, the officers are working to find a solution or safely repair the irrigation systems of the greenhouse. In the future, the Greenhouse Initiative hopes to raise funds to support other environmentally-focused organizations, grow and sell native plant species, harvest pocket prairies or vegetable plants, and more!

More About the Co-founders

Although the Greenhouse Initiative officially began the operations for their club around the beginning of October 2020, the passion of the co-presidents and mindfulness that they carry towards the preservation of the environment started before they even decided to start the club.

For one of the Greenhouse Initiative co-presidents, Eesa Ansari, a senior at College Park High School, his interest in the environment sprouted from a young age when he began to attend and teach composting classes in the community. Since then, Eesa has participated in a multitude of environmentally-related activities, and he's developed a love for nature, gardening, and traveling. Eesa wants to continue pursuing his passion in the future, and he even plans to major in environmental engineering in college.

For the co-president, Ethan Yu, who’s also currently a senior at College Park High School, his interest in the environment developed throughout his high school career, as he began to realize the magnitude of issues relating to the ecosystem. Over quarantine, Ethan was even able to start his own garden. For fun, Ethan enjoys completing nature trails, and for the past year, Ethan has kept trash bags handy for picking up litter in his free time. Ethan credits a part of his newfound appreciation for planting to knowledgeable teachers at his school in addition to classes like AP Environmental Science that exposed him to direness of the threats that the environment currently faces.

How You Can Support Their Mission and Last Words from the Co-founders

The Greenhouse Initiative, as of right now, is a school-based club that will be focused towards involving students specifically at College Park High School. However, Eesa and Ethan hope that everyone will look for ways in which they can create change within their own communities, whether that’s starting a butterfly garden, making bird feeders, or simply caring for native grasses in your area. In the words of Eesa, the Greenhouse Initiative encourages everyone to put a foot forward for the environment, because “there are small things that you can do around your [community] that can make a much larger impact than you’d think.”

If you would like to donate to the Greenhouse Initiative to support their mission, or if you would like to read more about their club, feel free to visit their Instagram page @greenhouseinitiativecp or go to the Student Unit Instagram page @studentunit to see our full post about the Greenhouse Initiative!

Lastly, Student Unit would like to thank the Greenhouse Initiative for taking the time with us to discuss their inspiring project. Specifically, Student Unit would also like to thank the co-founders, Ethan and Eesa, for being wonderful interviewees to talk to.

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