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Jill Buck is the Founder and Executive Director of the Go Green Initiative and is also the owner of Buck Consulting. Jill lives with her family in Pleasanton, California. Full Bio
2008 Award Winners Announced
By: Jill Buck
The Go Green Initiative(GGI), the world's largest environmental education program, today announced the recipients of the awards for County, School, Teacher and Parent of the Year. There were also two recipients of the "Founder's Keepers" award who are special contributors to the success of the Go Green Initiative over the course of 2008. Award winners are as follows:
Go Green County of the Year was awarded to Tompkins County, New York. The Tompkins County Solid Waste Authority representative, Linnett Short, accepted the award on behalf of the County, based on her outstanding efforts to help schools in her area become registered Go Green Initiative schools. During the past twelve months, over half of the schools in Tompkins County have registered with the Go Green Initiative, making it the fastest growing GGI County in the U.S. There are 18 schools with 14,220 students and 1,324 teachers registered in Tompkins County, including Ithaca College.
Go Green School of the Year was awarded to Walnut Grove Elementary from Pleasanton, CA, and Pontiac High School from Pontiac, IL. Pontiac High School was unable to send representatives to the Go Green Earth Summit, and will be presented with their award at a later date. Walnut Grove Elementary was represented by Principal Bill Radulovich and Teacher, Kat Peters. Walnut Grove Elementary is the Charter Go Green Initiative school. GGI Founder, Jill Buck, was the PTA president of Walnut Grove Elementary when she wrote the Go Green Initiative, and since the school adopted the GGI in September 2002, the 700 students and 33 teachers have a to-date recycling total of 235,502 pounds of paper; 10,221 pounds of cardboard; 2,987 pounds of aluminum; 7,450 pounds of plastic; and over 2,000 pounds of mixed recyclables. Walnut Grove Elementary spearheaded the development of the first solar powered school district in California, and is the standard bearer for implementing all five elements of the GGI on campus.
Go Green Teacher of the Year was awarded to Ryan Finley of Grace Hill Elementary in Rogers, Arkansas. Mr. Finley is affectionately known as "the Lorax" by his students, based on the character from the popular Dr. Seuss book by that name. Mr. Finley teaches special needs children how to recycle and engage in environmentally responsible behaviors. His students run the recycling program for their entire school, and in just the last half of the 2007-08 school year recycled the following: 29,130 pounds of paper; 12,800 pounds of cardboard; 1.170 pounds of aluminum; 1,100 pounds of plastic; and 2,200 pounds of food waste.
Go Green Parent of the Year was awarded to Casey Magnuson, the former environmental chairperson of the Texas State PTA. Under her leadership, Texas PTA became the first state PTA in the U.S. to formally adopt the Go Green Initiative. Due to Casey Magnuson's enthusiastic and persuasive leadership, the state of Texas has consistently been the U.S. leader in GGI schools, and was awarded the Go Green State of the Year in 2005. Ms. Magnuson and her two sons have traveled to conferences across Texas spreading the word about the GGI, and Texas now has 328 Go Green Initiative schools, with 262,866 students and 25,981 teachers. Under Ms. Magnuson's direction, Texas GGI schools have recycled the following from 2005 to the present: 2.5 million pounds of paper; 3,160 pounds of cardboard; 9,359 pounds of aluminum; 10,225 pounds of plastic; 4,806 printer cartridges; 3,494 cell phones; and 25,881 pounds of mixed recyclables.
Founder's Keepers Awards were awarded to Kenny Luna of Long Island, NY and Jennifer Spoor of Syracuse, NY. Mr. Luna is a 7th grade science teacher on Long Island, and invited the Go Green Initiative to partner with him on the "Great Copier Epidemic" project this year, which helped raise awareness on campuses across the country about how schools can reduce the amount of paper consumed. Mr. Luna is a writer for TreeHugger.com, owned by the Discovery Channel, and writes about the Go Green Initiative School of the Week each week on that site.
Jennifer Spoor is the Go Green Initiative coordinator for the City of Syracuse. She is employed by Naef Recycling and has worked closely with the GGI and NYSAR3 to provide resources and financial support to help the entire City of Syracuse School District adopt the Go Green Initiative. Ms. Spoor made contact with GGI Founder Jill Buck in 2004 when Spoor was a high school student seeking help in instituting a paper recycling program in her rural high school in Middleburgh, NY. After getting involved with the GGI, she brought what she had learned to the City of Syracuse, and as a result of her leadership the schools have recycled the following: 852,453 pounds of paper; 52,163 pounds of cardboard; and 6,025 pounds of plastic. As a result of paper recycling alone, the schools saved nearly 3 million gallons of water and 161,880 gallons of oil.
About the Go Green Initiative: The Go Green Initiative is the world's fastest growing fully comprehensive environmental action plan for schools. By promoting environmental stewardship on campuses from elementary schools through universities, Go Green works to involve families, businesses and local governments in the common goal of protecting human health through environmental stewardship. Since its inception in July 2002, the Go Green Initiative has been endorsed by the National School Boards Association, National Recycling Coalition, adopted by eight State PTA Boards, implemented in all 50 U.S. states, 13 countries and on 4 continents. The Go Green Initiative has kept more than seven million pounds of recyclables out of the world's landfills, conserved 18,606,000 gallons of water, and saved 44 billion BTUs of energy. These accomplishments were achieved voluntarily, with no mandates or legislation, showing that "going green" is practical and simply makes sense. There are currently over 1.7 million students and teachers in registered Go Green schools.
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