I first joined an environmental club in grade 3, and continued through middle school. In grade 6, our teacher was responsible, proactive and silly, and our club ran excellently. I studied hard for the Environmental Mind Grind, a Jeopardy-style contest, and we won in our district.
I got a ride back from it with our teacher, and it was pouring outside. I looked him in the eye as tears welled up and said, "We'll do this again next year, right? With the same people and everything." He said yes, but I was crying as I walked through the rain to my bus stop.
First day of school next year, we discovered that he had been replaced. The new teacher was great too, and though our club diminished in size, we won the mind grind again and had fun.
It was grade 8, our last year of middle school, when there were only 5 of us left. We had to find another teacher, but there was a strike and no one wanted to help. Finally one agreed, but he was rarely at meetings and when he was, he sat at his computer or talked on the phone. We recruited members, but without a teacher it seemed impossible to get onto our feet, and with our crazy members, every meeting ended disastrously. Soon, it was just us 5 again, but this former joy had become a burden. My friends constantly found excuses to not hold meetings, and chatted when we did.
When we had gotten nowhere by Christmas break, something snapped. It suddenly didn’t matter how irresponsible the teacher was or what my friends did, as long as they cooperated with me. I wrote a letter about waste and recycling in fast food restaurants while they fooled around behind me. I met repeatedly with the principal and we scheduled a meeting with the mayor, who agreed to send it out. We held a school wide assembly to spread awareness, did a bake sale, had blue-green day, got the solid waste coordinator to do compost presentations for the school, and donated $200 of our mind grind winnings to endangered species.
I finally understood what I had been working towards for the last 6 years. When I had defined hydroelectricity in competition, it hadn’t been for the planet; it had been for judges, to be crowned champion. That year, my own word for word answers finally sunk in, and I decided that all my hard work had been worth it. I didn’t expect everyone to suddenly become like me because of our initiatives, but I tried my best and I knew it wasn’t wasted.
Next year, there will be a bigger club at my new school where I hope I will find people who care for the environment like I do. I will always care, and even though sometimes I feel like giving up, feel like no one else cares, I never will.