Eight for the earth - E Magazine's Kid Heroes Hall of Fame - includes related article

E: The Environmental Magazine, Dec, 1994 by Mike Weilbacher

E Magazine's Inductees Into The Kid Heroes Hall of Fame

"Kids say the darndest things," chirped that premier talk show host Art Linkletter. Kids also do the darndest things, superbly shown by the eight kids you're about to meet. They've lectured delegates at the United Nations, protested at the White House, built organizations of thousands of members and visited shows from Oprah to Today to A Current Affair.

"If you are thinking one year ahead," says a Chinese proverb, "sow seed. If you are thinking 10 years ahead, plant a tree. If you are thinking 100 years ahead, educate the people." These amazing eight have done all three. If you're worried about the fate of the Earth, take some solace as we unveil the Kid Heroes Hall of Fame.

THE TREE MUSKETEERS: ALL FOR ONE

In EL Segundo, California in 1987, 13 eight-year-old Brownies gathered around a skinny sycamore sapling, stuck it in the soil and christened it "Marcie the Marvelous Tree," their penance for using disposable paper plates on a recent camping trip.

Thus was born the Tree Musketeers, a name invented by founding member Alisa Wise. Four of the original 18 are still active. Tara Church, 16, the current president and a junior in El Segundo High School, describes her town as "surrounded by the Los Angeles airport, a Chevron oil refinery, a sewage treatment plant. and an Allied Signal chemical plant." Since trees are, she says, "a sound barrier, a smell barrier, a physical barrier that removes toxins from the air? the group decided to surround their neighborhood with a green necklace of trees, and they have accomplished just that.

They have planted 700 trees, handed out more than 6,000 seedlings to other school children, started El Segundo's first recycling center (which reduced residential waste by 16 percent in eight months), begun publishing a column in the local newspaper, encouraged stores to carry eco-products, produced a TV quiz show, run an 800-number environmental hotline and organized the first National Youth Environmental Summit in 1993.

Last Earth Day, says Sabrina Alimahomen, 16, "We were in Washington, and I spoke at a press conference with Al Gore. He stopped his remarks to talk for about five minutes about Tree Musketeers. He said, 'Sabrina, I'm with you.' It just hit me how big we can be." Remember Marcie the Marvelous Tree? She's fine, thank you, now a majestic 40-footer.

Contact: Tree Musketeers, 136 Main Street, El Segundo, CA 90245/(800)4730263.

OCEAN ROBBINS: AN OCEAN OF MOTION

"Today's topic is the environment," announces the glitzy game show host. "How many Americans risk lung damage from exposure to polluted air?"

Dexter, the designated nerd, pushes his oversized glasses back on his nose and says in a mock too-high-IQ voice, "I believe the answer you are looking for is 3 out of 5!"

"That's right," says the host, and the audience erupts in applause.

This send-up of Jeopardy opens a high school assembly performance by Youth for Environmental Sanity (YES!). "Dexter" is played by Ocean Robbins, 20, from Santa Cruz, California. In the spring of 1990, Ocean--yes, that's his given name--had the idea for these traveling environmental troubadours while, of all things, walking the beach bestride his namesake. The show has now been staged for more than 450,000 students in 35 states and six countries. And YES! pulls few political punches. It advocates reducing population growth, boycotting companies with bad environmental records, eating organic foods and grazing lower on the food chain, a stance that prompted the Pennsylvania Beef Council to send attack letters to every school in the Philadelphia area in a failed attempt to scuttle the group's bookings there.

"When we eat lower on the food chain," Ocean says, "we save water, stop global warming, reduce energy consumption, help end starvation, save animals from needless exploitation and help our own health--it's all one struggle." He sounds like his very proud father, John Robbins, author of Diet for a New America, and founder of EarthSave, the foundation under which YES! operates. But it's clear that YES! belongs to the teens and twentysomethings that run the shows. Ocean says, "Environmental problems are huge, but while we can blame corporations and politicians for the problems, who buys the products, who votes for the politicians? I saw a generation that felt disempowered, and a world that needed active participation. Everyone has to feel needed and valuable, like they can make a difference."

Contact: YES, 706 Frederick Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95062/(408)459-9344.

THE NATURAL GUARD: RICHIE'S NEW HAVENS

The answering machine message exudes energy: "This is Tim...This is Damian... We're the Natural Guards--and you can be one too! We're not here right now 'cause we're out saving the planet..." Actually, they're out saving a piece of New Haven, and perhaps saving themselves for good measure.

Tim Mack, 14, and Damian Anderson, 15, are two of a group of Connecticut kids who, a few years back, wrote their mayor with a seemingly simple request: to turn an abandoned piece of hardscrabble property into a productive garden. Instead, they received a Civics 101 lesson: the mayor didn't write back. But as Natural Guards, charter members of a fledgling nationwide organization rounded in 1990 by musician Richie Havens, today its board chairman, they kept writing, pestering and, most of all, working.