Lamar Thrift

Project Theme: Climate change-caused natural disasters - waste reduction

Target Audience and Location: Lamar High School community in Huston, TX.

Vision: Fostering a safer community by reducing waste going to landfills, mitigating the impact of climate related disasters.

Mission: Lamar Thrift engages the student body by hosting ongoing drives in our community to reduce, reuse and recycle their waste.

Project Description: Scholar Franklin Wu and educator Scholar Sally Woolweaver set out to find a way to create a project that would ultimately be connected to reducing natural disasters caused by climate change since Huston has been impacted by multiple in recent years. Franklin was also inspired by the small Japanese town of Kamikatsu, on an ambitious path with its residents toward a zero-waste life by 2030.

They knew they wanted to leverage the fact that their school has one of the largest National Honor Society (NHS) Chapter’s in the nation, which requires each of its 250+ members to commit to community service. This culminated in them designing a project focused on easy, tangible ways their school community could engage in waste reduction together (mainly following the principles of reduce, reuse, recycle), engaging NHS students to help them, who in turn also received community service hours.

Lamar Thrift plans to hold multiple donation drives throughout the academic year focused on collecting and exchanging goods that otherwise might end up in the landfill. They also have a website set up where people can list things of use that they want to give away or receive, so their school community and its numerous clubs have an easy way to give, seek and trade items as well as find out how to recycle them if they can’t be donated. The team also worked with a community partner to install permanent bins for collecting reusable and recyclable items in key areas at the school.

Watch this team's project presentation at our virtual showcase event!