Maggie Del Re: Hi, I'm Maggie Del Rey.
Simmy Decker: My name is Simmy Decker.
Jesse Zucker: My name is Jesse Zucker.
Saul Goldstein: I'm Saul Goldstein.
Selah Bickel: I’m Selah Bickel.
Lotem Sagi: I'm Lotem Sagi.
Maggie Del Re: I’m a sophomore.
Simmy Decker: And I’m a junior.
Jesse Zucker: I’m a senior.
Saul Goldstein: I’m a sophomore.
Selah Bickel: And I’m a freshman.
Lotem Sagi: I’m a freshman at Brandeis.
Maggie Del Re: The first time I remember really thinking about or caring about sustainability was in fifth grade.
Jesse Zucker: I don't quite remember how old I was, but I'm gonna guess somewhere around, ten or eleven.
Saul Goldstein: Fifth grade.
Lotem Sagi: Junior year of high school.
Selah Bickel: Sophomore year, maybe junior year.
Maggie Del Re: In October of my fifth grade experience, we had a really big snowstorm right before Halloween, so it destroyed all the trees at my elementary school because the trees weren't ready for a big snowstorm like that. I decided to start a fundraiser to get new trees. I really, I really did it mostly just because I liked the trees. I thought they were fun to play on and pretty to look at. But through that I started learning more about sustainability and the role that trees play in sustainability. Been doing it ever since I guess.
Lotem Sagi: I took a class on environmental science. I actually took it by accident because I was supposed to be an AP Bio and then I was in AP Bio for two weeks, and I was like, “this is not for me, this is not happening.” I switched to AP Environmental Science. And it was the first class that I remember being like, “wow, this is really happening right now, it's like unraveling as we speak and we all play a part in it.”
Simmy Decker: When I was a kid, my mom used to walk up and down the beach with me and my sister, and my sister was really little and would sometimes have to ride in the stroller. And my mom would fill up all the stroller’s pockets with trash and then when we would find the trash can, she’d put all the trash that she’d pick up in the trash can. And I was really embarrassed by her doing this. And I asked, “Mom, why are you doing that? Trash is gross.” And she explained how that trash has to go somewhere.
Selah Bickel: My dad started to get very, very concerned and really stressed, to the extent that he quit his job, and made a drastic life decision. And I think that really highlighted to me that there were no lengths too great to go to in order to kind of protect what is left. And it was kind of then that it didn't even feel like a choice, it felt like a deep obligation to dedicate my life or require it— you know, like how could I not dedicate my life? Because otherwise there would be no future.
Jesse Zucker: My brother was taking an AP environmental science class, and he came home, and at the Shabbat dinner, on Friday night, and he said, “Everyone, I'm not gonna be eating red meat anymore, or beef.” And we asked, “Oh, why, Daniel?” And he said, “I've read this book and I'm learning in my class about the contribution to global warming and the negative effects of the beef industry on the environment.” So that was probably my first encounter with someone who was really making a life choice in service of the environment, and certainly something that has stayed with me throughout my environmental endeavors.
Saul Goldstein: At my lower school we have this oceanography night, and like the whole year we kind of prepared for this one night where the parents come in and we would talk about the ocean, and there were a bunch of different groups and one of them was a group about pollution. I remember looking at the project that the kids in my class, in the pollution group, made, and it was just this little diorama of the ocean, but so much of it was garbage, and they kind of drew black on it to make it look like an oil spill and most of it was not blue. And I think that's the first time I realized that there was something going on.