The Wrangler: What is the tree huggers club?
Breeze: The Tree Huggers Club is a club focused on increasing sustainability at our school and raising environmental awareness among our members.

The Wrangler: Why did you start this club?

Breeze: I started the club because I noticed the huge amount of waste that is created at GRHS, especially in the lunchroom, and I wanted to create a platform to show the administration that there are students who care and who want change.

The Wrangler: what is the purpose of the club?
Breeze: The purpose of the club is to beautify the George Ranch campus and to reduce our environmental impact as a whole.

The Wrangler: how has it helped the George Ranch environment?
Breeze: So far we have implemented plastic bottle recycling which has reduced the amount of waste we produce at school. If everyone who used plastic bottles at George Ranch recycled them it would be even more significant.

The Wrangler: What activities do y’all host around the school?
Breeze: We have meetings usually every other Thursday where we do activities including planting a flower pot in the outside lunch area, creating an herb garden, and making recycled ornaments for our club Christmas tree using things like water bottles, bottle caps and burnt out light bulbs.

The Wrangler: What impacts do you feel you have made to the students?
Breeze: Having a club to talk about environmental issues and concerns for our generation and the future has been impactful in itself. We try to encourage our members to implement eco friendly living practices by giving them an “environmental challenge” at each meeting.

The Wrangler: what made you so passionate about saving the environment?
Breeze: I became interested in environmental sustainability when I went to a camp at the University of Washington and realized that we have virtually no systems in place to reduce our waste whereas on their campus alone all of the food waste is composted and there is as many recycling bins as trash bins.

The Wrangler: How do students know what they can recycle?
Breeze: At George Ranch we still have limited recycling. In classrooms all paper from schoolwork can be recycled in the small blue bins and outside of our lunchroom we introduced the recycling bins for plastic bottles only. Any type of plastic bottle can be recycled including soda bottles or juice. To prevent a sticky recycling bin, please make sure the cap is on before recycling.

The Wrangler: How do you advertise for your club?
Breeze: We advertise for our club by posting on our instagram (@grhstreehuggers) and encouraging members to share our posts. We also have club t-shirts that some of our members wear around school to advertise.

The Wrangler: How can students join this club?
Breeze: Anyone can join our club. Our remind 101 can be joined by texting @grhstree to 81010 and from there information about when our meetings are and other events are sent out.