Parker Little
Parker was a student at Gulf Islands Secondary School in 2022.
Congratulations Parker!
I-SEA Youth Climate Activism Award
Standing upon the precipice of the track's descending stairs, I held the bag of contaminated recycling aloft in view of the vice-principal at its base and said: this needs to change. It took one year to understand that plunging my arm elbow-deep into bags of contaminated recycling as part of Key Club's sorting initiative was not only inefficient, but failed to target the source of the problem: the community who did not understand the local impacts of their mis-sorted recycling. To enact change, I would need to shatter that glass barrier of environmental apathy by starting a movement within the school and following the momentum beyond it. There are several key ways I am improving the outlook for our planet with respect to climate change.
In the fall of 2020 I founded a group at Claremont Secondary School called the Claremont Reduction of Environmental Waste (CREW) club, setting and surpassing goals to mitigate contamination and increase awareness. As of May 2022, all of our food and cafeteria programs operate with compostable cutlery. Local businesses such as Big Wheel Burger and Level Ground have taught us the lessons they had learned about going zero-to-landfill, and our decisions have been guided by that advice. To date, I have presented to over 1,200 of my peers and school staff on an enthusiastic campaign of awareness about the new recycling signs and stations I designed, for change cannot come without activism. In 2020, Claremont was sending two industrial dumpsters of garbage per week to Harland Landfill. Now, we are sending only one. Participating in community garbage cleanups, working rain and shine to restore the local ecology of Haliburton farms, and creating presentation materials for a peer's non-profit start-up, Souler Driving, are a few of the environmental actions that granted me the opportunity to speak alongside the Mayor of Saanich, Dr. Fred Haynes, as the youth spokesperson for a municipal climate award. Saanich was one of only 88 cities from around the world to earn a place on the Carbon Disclosure Project's (CDP) 'A-list' of green cities--cities that had a proven record of making a difference for our beautiful planet through a positive amalgamation of legislation, restoration, and energy-efficient infrastructure. My aforementioned efforts, including my contributions to writing Claremont's 12-page Climate Action Plan and my consistent involvement in One Planet Saanich conferences as Claremont's designated representative, contributed to this momentous event.
Throughout the years, my actions have been fuelled by the pivotal thesis: how can we leave the earth better than how we found it? While my success beyond the community has brought with it many new and intriguing opportunities, it has also compelled me to remain devoted to the success of my local school community. I have strived to leave Saanich a better place than it was when I began. With the financial support of this scholarship, I will be able to continue making a difference for our beautiful planet in a post-secondary world.
Parker is the Secretary for the YOUTH CLIMATE CABINET
and sheโs also a board member for I-SEA
