James Island hosts Earth Force Summit

Increasing recycling efforts in the community. Building eco-friendly housing. Learning how to conserve water. Testing older buildings for harmful materials.

These are just some of the topics that were discussed and presented at Friday's Lowcountry Earth Force Environmental Youth Summit. About 25 businesses and organizations, along with area schools, came to James Island County Park to give presentations on their service-learning projects. This year marks a decade's worth of these annual summits. The informative presentations ran on a seven-minute rotation.

"It's kind of taken on a life of its own," said Stacy Littlefield, Lowcountry Earth Force's education coordinator. She said recycling was a prevalent theme among several of the groups, and she was impressed with how much thought and effort went into their projects.

"That was cool for me to see that they really started to think about recycling ... that a lot of things can be reused and not just recycled," she said.

Stiles Point Elementary was one such school. It had a team of 22 fifth-graders who raised awareness and kick-started recycling habits for many during their Day of Caring on March 31. The students handed out free recycling bins and reusable canvas bags to carry groceries in at the Piggly Wiggly on Harbor View Road. Ten-year-old Grace Engle was surprised at the results.

"At first, we thought no one would listen to us because we're kids," she said. "But then we saw how much we could do." They also filmed public service announcements to run on their school's morning news show.

Jenni Roberson, a fifth-grade teacher at Stiles Point and the adviser for the school's Earth Force group, felt that not only did the students gain knowledge about environmentally friendly habits, but their work early in the process provided a valuable academic lesson as well.

"You look around your school and community. It teaches them to do research," she said.

Roberson said that although she was educated last summer to aid the students with their Earth Force project, she is not the driving force. "All of this has been done by the students. I'm just here to facilitate."

Florence Crittenton, a facility that provides medical, educational and support services to single mothers, is housed in a building downtown that is many decades old. Kaci May, a math and science teacher at Florence Crittenton, said the inefficiency and possible harmful materials in the residence spurred their project ideas.

"We really just want to go green," May said. "We focused on recycling. We tested our facility for radon." She said the girls also were looking into testing the walls for lead and asbestos. "They're obviously really concerned about these things because they want to keep their babies safe."

The Florence Crittenton team also caulked areas in the home and put in spray foam. They are going to beautify the outdoor space and plant a vegetable garden.

"If we can make a portion of our vegetables and herbs ourselves, we're moving in the right direction," she said. The young women would like to install low-flow shower heads and energy-efficient bulbs, but they don't have the resources for that quite yet. This is the first year they have participated in the summit, but May said they definitely plan to do it from now on. Habitat for Humanity in Charleston built a model home with environmentally friendly material and let summit participants hammer and nail away. The organization is trying to find more ways to recycle building materials and save energy on the homes by using foam board insulation and sealing the house properly to save on energy bills.

"Anything we can do to make the bills for our homeowners lower, we try to do. And then that helps the environment in a roundabout way," said Dan Jones, a construction manager for Habitat.

Lowcountry Earth Force officials said the summit was a huge success and appreciated all the ideas and information that flowed from community organizations and pupils.

"The students have worked on these projects all year," said Anna Richardson, Earth Force's executive director. "This is sort of the culmination of their hard work."

Reach Sophia Rodriguez at 937-5538 or srodriguez@postandcourier.com.