This season of giving, help fund our students’ and teachers’ most impactful environmental projects!
Last school year, Grades of Green awarded more than $15,000 in Eco-Grants and stipends to students and teachers around the world!
Help us DOUBLE the amount we award in 2022 by donating today!
Each dollar you donate goes toward expanding the environmental impacts brought about by these amazing student environmentalists and their dedicated teachers.
Typically, each Eco-Grant ranges in value from our Grand Prize, $1,000 Eco-Grant, to $500 or $250. Teacher stipends also range in size from $500 for new teachers to $250 for those returning to our programs.
See How Our Eco-Grant Expands our Students’ Impact
To give you an idea of the outsized effect that our Eco-Grants and stipends have on students and teachers, we asked last year’s awardees to record a short video to showcase their project and what they plan to do with their new funding.
Please take a moment to watch the videos below and discover how you can positively impact both the environment and our students by helping us double the Eco-Grants that we provide.
Rylee from Redondo Union High School
Most Inspirational Team Award – $500
Redondo Beach, CA
Rylee and her team earned our $500 Eco-Grant to start their own website to educate and inspire the public to reduce their use of single-use plastics. Eco-Leaders like Rylee worked with state and local leaders to discuss problems caused by plastic, and how people can take action to fight the plastic pollution problem. Her team is helping pave the way to a greener plastic-free future!
Sam from Mira Costa High School
Green Influencers Award – $500
Manhattan Beach, CA
Eco-Leader Sam Torres and her team launched their viral campaign, “South Bay Meatless Mondays,” which gained major reach in their community. With their $500 Eco-Grant, the Mira Costa Team is excited to work on their vegetarian cookbook and host monthly beach cleanups. Thanks to Eco-Leaders like Sam and her team, sustainable eating habits are being made easier and more accessible to the public!
Ruthie from Helen Keller Middle School
Community Changemakers Award – $500
Long Beach, CA
Eco-Leader Ruthie and the Helen Keller Middle School team earned our $500 Eco-Grant for advocating to Long Beach Unified School District to commit to transition to 100% renewable energy by 2030. Her team collaborated with local government leaders, LBUSD staff, press outlets, and NGOs to keep up the pressure on the district. Their $500 Eco-Grant will fund eco-resources such as school gardens, bike racks, and recycling programs for underserved schools in Long Beach. Eco-Leaders like Ruthie and her team are one step closer to making their school district more sustainable!
Eunita from Matungu Community Charity Development
Grand Prize Winning Team – $1000
Nairobi, Kenya
Eunita and three other Eco-Leaders from the Matungu Community Charity Development earned our $1,000 Grand Prize Eco-Grant for planting 3,500 trees and more. They’re using their Eco-Grant to inspire local communities to plant more trees to expand their reforestation efforts. They’ve used the grant to purchase seeds, equipment, and establish a community nursery. Through Eunita and the Matungu Community Charity Development’s efforts, the Nairobi community is on its way to vastly reducing their carbon footprint!
Deshna and Devenganna from the Modern High School for Girls
International Changemaker Award – $250
Kolkata, India
The International Changemaker Award recipients, Deshna and Devenganna, and the Modern High School for Girls team are collecting e-waste and inspiring teen leaders to work on waste awareness around the world. With their $250 Eco-Grant, these Eco-Leaders are helping install solar panels in villages of Bihar, India, to make these villages more sustainable and eco-friendly!
Max from Weston High School
Rookie of the Year Award – $500
Weston, Massachusetts
Eco-Leader Max and the Weston High School team received the Rookie of the Year Award for their impressive work in inspiring their community to help them collect over 900 pounds of plastic bags. All those plastic bags are being used to create a public community bench for Weston residents. With their $500 Eco-Grant, Max and his team will be able to fund a plastic bailer at Weston waste transfer station to create a long-term solution to plastic bag recycling in Weston!
Halima from the Kishoka Youth Organization
Most Dynamic Team Award – $250
Mombasa, Kenya
The Most Dynamic Team Awardees, Eco-Leader Halima and the Kishoka Youth Organization, have successfully hosted interactive events to get their community to take on environmental issues. They held bike-riding events and planted mangroves to offset the removal of trees for a nearby highway construction project. With their $250 Eco-Grant, the Kishoka Youth Organization will be planting more mangroves and expanding outreach to more local schools and students. Their work will educate younger students and the greater community on the importance of mangroves and planting trees!
Mary Bragg Elementary
Best Elementary Impact Award – $500
Cerritos, CA
Mary Bragg went above and beyond. The team is enormous (over 50 kids) so they split into 3 groups. Each group voted on a group leader and held a weekly meeting where they set an agenda and met their goals. These 5th and 6th graders picked trees for their topic and decided to have each group focus on a different solution. Group one focused on increasing urban tree cover, group two focused on protecting tropical forests, and group three focused on reducing the heat island effect.
Meghana from Farmington High School
Most Collaborative Teams Award – $500
Farmington, MI
Students from Adams and Farmington Hills High Schools collaborated on a project to get their schools to ban styrofoam lunch trays and replace them with sustainable alternatives. These teams really put in the time and effort to work as a collective unit to try and get styrofoam banned in their cafeterias! You could tell that they were extremely organized and were always available to move their project forward.