Group encourages youth to help preserve the environment
In October 2008, Pflugerville resident Matthew Evans was turning 15 and wanted to throw a birthday party, but his ideal celebration did not center on games or eating cake. Instead of receiving gifts, Evans wanted to give back to his community.
The result was the first Teen Green Party for a Purpose, at which Evans and his friends planted 30 trees at Lake Pfluger Park. Having been turned down by other service organizations that did not take volunteers younger than 18, Evans decided to take the party even further and created Discover Green Young Environmental Leaders Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the environment.
"[Evans and his friends] thought that having a service project as a birthday party was a great idea, and so [Evans] decided he wanted to make Discover Green a regular thing," Discover Green Youth Director Sarah Young said. "He made it a nonprofit so that kids could get together in the community and do things that they're passionate about."
Sarah, Evans' stepsister, attended the party and became one of the group's first eco-inspiration coaches, leaders who spearhead the organization's projects. In 2011, when Evans left for college, Sarah, then 15, took the reins as the head of Discover Green, and she now coordinates projects and presentations, gathers volunteers and applies for grants on Discover Green's behalf.
"I look for service projects that are needed, people that need [help] with projects," she said.
Most of those projects are tree plantings, but volunteers also mark storm drains, give presentations on environmental issues, participate with local organizations such as 4-H and clean up trash. Discover Green volunteers can also be found participating in events such as Pflugerville's Nature Day, repairing the gardens at Seton Medical Center Williamson, or working with various cities and municipalities from Georgetown to San Antonio to target where they can help. Projects also include educational speakers and incentives for volunteers to do a good job.
"We have some kind of motivation at the end [of a project], and usually that's pizza," Sarah said. "What motivates teens more than free food?"
For younger volunteers, Sarah started Sapling Parties with a Purpose last year, which encourages children ages 4–9 to plant smaller saplings.
A grant from outdoors store REI also allowed Discover Green to purchase smaller, child-friendly tools for planting saplings. Sarah's sister, Marie, who was 4 when the organization started and was often frustrated when she could not use full-sized tools, donated her playhouse as a shed for the tools.
"[Marie] would be tagging along, but she wanted to use the tools like everyone else," Sarah said. "So [in 2011], she decided to donate her playhouse in the backyard to make a tool shed. We got a grant for $5,000 from REI, and we filled the tool shed with child-friendly tools so they can actually get in with the shovels to dig a hole or use the trash grabbers that aren't hard to grasp."
Since its beginning as a teenage birthday party, more than 3,244 youths have volunteered with Discover Green, and aside from its Pflugerville roots, the organization has two additional chapters in Marble Falls and San Antonio. In developing Discover Green, Evans also wrote a replication guide, which the organization still uses, to show youth in other communities how to start similar groups.
"Even though they started here and probably 80 percent of what they do is local or regional, it's been really fun to kind of watch them [expand and] try to figure out what works for them," said Kate Young, a Discover Green adult volunteer and mother of Evans, Sarah and Marie.
As a primarily youth-driven organization, Discover Green is always looking for young volunteers to coordinate and participate in projects. Adult volunteers are also needed to help guide activities, serve pizza and help with equipment. All interested volunteers can contact the organization at www.facebook.com/discovergreen.
1000 Purple Martin Drive, Pflugerville, 512-670-0359, www.discovergreenyel.org
