The Blue Star Green Team

Hi Blue Star families! My name is Emma Zelkowitz, and as the leader of the first Green Team at Blue Star I wanted to share what it is all about. As a Teen Villager this past summer I wanted to make my last summer as a Blue Star camper one to remember for many years to come. The Green Team 2019 was a group of villagers that were committed to coming up with ideas and physical projects to make Blue Star a greener camp. This was our way of practicing being kind to the planet. Alongside Blue Star’s long-time eco partners at Green Camps, working with my friends and teammates changed my perspective of what teamwork and commitment can accomplish. If it wasn’t for the rest of the Green Team (and now my friends for life), I couldn’t have completed these three impactful and amazing projects.

Our first mission was to check every shower head at Blue Star to make sure all shower heads in every cabin across camp had the most eco-friendly water usage settings. This means that instead of the general flow of 3 gallons of water per minute, the ones at Blue Star only emit 1.5 gallons of water per minute. These eco-friendly shower heads are now in every single cabin and bathhouse!

Our second task was to cooperate and meet on-site with a solar power company to see if Blue Star could take most of Teen Village completely off the grid by next summer 2020. This would be a huge step at Blue Star for saving energy in Teen Village and educating the villagers about what is powering their cabins and their summer home.

Our last physical project of the summer was designing a recycled bottle cap decorated Green Team bench that will live in the Village forever. We collected bottle caps around the campgrounds and also from Granny’s where we had placed a collection bin. Some of us then worked together to decorate and paint the bench to present it at the Friendship Service. As our time as Green Team 2019 came to a close we decided, as one Village, to have everyone in Teen Village sign the bench to remember the ultimate summer we experienced.

I hope that the Green Team can be carried on by future generations that are just as passionate as the team of 2019. As a student I am bringing this mindset into my household, and I am recycling and collecting bottle caps to add onto the same bench at Blue Star. Your family can be kind to the planet at home by recycling your waste, trying to use less plastic overall, and composting on a small scale. I hope you have a beautiful green year!