The Eco-Council, a group of teachers, parents, and administrators, meets throughout the school year focused on one goal: making our community as sustainable as possible. The committee of devoted individuals meets to discuss solutions to environmental issues on campus. The issues of global warming and sustainability are relevant to the world, and also to our Five Goals — the RSCJ and Pope Francis have been calling for more work to be done. Each of the four schools has taken on different tasks to reach the eventual goal of sustainability. For example, Stuart Hall for Boys has been promoting and working with terracycle to recycle chip bags and energy wrappers. Here on Octavia, Gavin Woo and Brandon Seltenrich (both class of ‘16) have been managing the terracycle efforts.

Our own representative from the council, Mr. Vasquez, has served the past two years. He is hopeful for a club of students to be formed at Stuart Hall High School some time to be able to carry out some of the solutions the council comes up with. He himself engages in various forms of environmental help around our school, such as sorting waste to make sure reusable materials are not thrown away. Our caring representative wants to pursue other projects too, an example being the possibility of a living wall in the courtyard. As Mr. Vasquez is such a busy person, his time can only be split so many ways though. Any students interested in helping should send him an email to express their interest, the idea being that a club could be formed similar to the one at Stuart Hall for Boys, where a group of students meet and help with events the council. The majority of the focus for the council goes towards planning their biggest event of the year, Earth Day. Mr. Vasquez says that forming a club here on Octavia would be an “opportunity to take creative and innovative energy and transfer it to sustainability.” He believes we need a student-led club to help make the Eco-Council a larger part of our community, so that not just a club is sustained, but so are our society and planet.