Green Apple Day of Service 2016 a global success

Published on: 
October 21, 2016
Author: 
Emma Arnold

For the past five years, we at the Center For Green Schools™ at USGBC® have looked forward to September as the month when parents, students, teachers and volunteers inspire us with stories and celebrations of the incredible work they do to foster healthy and safe learning environments that sustain our world.

This year’s event was better than ever. 2016’s Green Apple Day of Service was a tremendous success, with volunteers mobilizing across the globe. Here in the U.S., projects included a sensory garden installation and LED lighting retrofit to support special-needs students in Miami and a schoolyard cleanup in Hartford that brought companies and communities together. And we’ve heard about impactful events taking place around the world, from Bogota to Bangalore, Croatia to Saudi Arabia.

Here at the Center For Green Schools headquarters in Washington, D.C., we participated in a few projects around town. On Wednesday, Sept. 21, we lent a hand at Joyful Food Market at Drew Elementary in Northeast D.C. Run by Martha’s Table, a nonprofit whose mission is to provide access to education, healthy food and family support, the Joyful Food Market program offers no-cost, fresh and healthy produce for students and their families at pop-up grocery markets in schools. Later in the week, we went over to Seaton Elementary to help clean up the school grounds and spruce up the gardens. We also taught three Learning Lab lessons to more than 100 students about the value of freshwater and the “Five Rs". We even snuck in a water-themed dance party!

In addition, Learning Lab hosted live online lessons with college sustainability champions and a celebrity chef. Teachers were invited to attend virtual sessions presented by sustainability leaders via Learning Lab Live, our partnership with Nepris. Classrooms across the country received advice from a professional chef about healthy cafeteria choices, and college students recommended strategies for implementing green projects on school campuses.

So that’s what we are up to! Now how about you? Tell us how your event went. After we hear back from you, we will send along a Project Captain certificate of thanks and access to one free registration for the online Green Classroom Professional Certificate course. Of course, we always love hearing (and seeing) more. Share your stories, photos and videos on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, or email them to us.

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