“I love being outside,” says Allison Sanders, member of MOB and the newest member of Montview’s Earth Care Team. Allison, a rising junior at Stargate School in Thornton, enjoys running, skiing and hiking in the mountains with her family. Closer to home, she likes walking through her neighborhood, spending time at the park with friends and riding on her school’s mountain biking team. Her parents are long-time Montview members and she’s been involved at Montview since she was two years old.

Environmental stewardship has been important to Allison all her life but she says it has become more important in the past two years. “As a child I knew that there was a lot of pollution and that we needed to take care of Earth. But I see now it’s a bigger problem than I had initially thought, one that should be talked about more and addressed.”  

“Every person needs to take steps to help out with caring for Earth,” she says. “Each person can do small things like driving less, installing LED lights and using less water. But it’s also important to be an advocate for other large-scale change, such as developing more renewable energy and reducing production of plastic and other waste.”

Allison acknowledges the enormity of our current environmental challenges. “Sometimes I do feel hopeless. I am only one person and sometimes it feels like there is little we can do against governments and large corporations. Sometimes it seems like your actions might not help. But if you take action and do something you can inspire others to also take action and that action will become larger and have more significance.”

Allison, like her role model Greta Thunberg, is the type of person who takes action and inspires others. In addition to serving on the Earth Care Team at Montview, Allison has recently been elected as president of SEA Star (Student Environmental Advocacy of Stargate), the environmental club at her school.

She has ambitious plans for the coming year. “We’re hoping to implement a composting system at our school which has a greenhouse and 20 planting beds around it. Also, ours is a K-12 school and we plan to teach the elementary students about environmental problems such as climate change.”

Looking to the future, Allison’s plans include studying environmental science or environmental health/technology engineering. Her passion for environmental stewardship has clearly influenced her professional goals. “I am inspired to go into an environmental-based career and learn more about the environment, my impact on Earth, and what changes need to be made to create a more sustainable future.”

The future is brighter for all of us because of people like Allison. We’re fortunate she’s here at Montview.

If you’d like to learn more about the Earth Care Team at Montview, contact Erika Walker at ewalker8070@gmail.com.

– Submitted By Erika Walker