Initially curious about the impact of flooding on the town of Mamaroneck, OCRA students Alex Boswell, Charlie Kaldor, Ryan McIntyre, and Dylan Roy (class of 2021), eventually came to understand the many small ways that individual residents collectively affected the local environment. With the financial support of an MFS grant, these students created an app that helps residents take immediate action to reduce their environmental impact. Leveraging existing local content and initiatives, students in consultation with mentors from the Town Sustainability Collaborative and Mike Sammartano designed, tested, and launched a digital platform that moves residents from broad topics such as water capture/reuse to specific remedies such as rain barrel purchase and installation. 

The app starts with six broad topics and ends with clear, actionable steps that all residents can take to reduce their environmental impact. The app officially launched on June 3rd 2021. Alex Boswell, one of the four OCRA group members, assisted in making additional improvements and transitioning the app to the Town Sustainability Collaborative during a 2021 summer internship.

Concerned about the disparities that exist between students of low and high-income families within the Mamaroneck School District, Sofia De Chiara, Tristen Lee, and Nate Reynoso (class of 2021) began their research trying to better understand which specific disparities existed, which services, resources, and/or remedies were available to low-income families and their children, and what if any gaps existed within opportunities between high and low income students, especially at the elementary school level. Concluding their research, the students decided to focus on the opportunity gap - the difference in access to extracurricular opportunities beyond school amongst high and low income students. The students thought they could reduce this gap by connecting low income elementary school students to extracurricular opportunities provided by local businesses. These extracurricular activities would provide students with the knowledge and confidence to succeed within their future school settings. 

Funded by an MFS grant, students created a digital platform that connects low-income elementary school students to scholarships from local businesses offering extracurricular programming, e.g., music, art, computer ed, martial arts, dance, etc. Undaunted by the pandemic, these students fine-tuned their platform and partnered with a local nonprofit to fundraise in the spring and summer of 2020. This fundraising effort helped both local businesses in these difficult economic times and provided scholarships for low-income elementary school students.  Even in the midst of the pandemic, low-income elementary school students enjoyed weeks-long programs offered at businesses such as MacInspires and Groove.  Before the pandemic struck, Learning Link had placed over 50 low-income elementary school students into a variety of rich, engaging extracurricular programs. By the end of summer 2021 almost 100 low-income elementary and middle school students accessed a variety of enriching extracurricular programs.

Caitlyn Carpenter, Anna McDonald, Alison Hecht, Frances McDowell, and Todd Freifeld (class of 2022) were first introduced to the issue of legal representation and evictions in their freshman year of OCRA when a local judge spoke about his experience during eviction proceedings. During the first half of their sophomore year, the five students formed a group around their shared curiosity and desire to solve part of this issue. During their second year in OCRA, they deepened their understanding through qualitative and quantitative research, while simultaneously developing relationships with experts and various community stakeholders.  They spoke with dozens of eviction prevention experts and community stakeholders, both building a stronger local coalition as well as integrating themselves within the larger regional and state-wide coalitions. However, in the spring of 2020, a pandemic struck and schools closed across the country. Luckily, the students had already found community mentors, Jirandy Martinez and Janet Fry from the Community Resource Center, that provided crucial guidance throughout their remaining 2 ½ years in OCRA. 

Students were quick to engage with the local faith-based community, seeing an opportunity to connect their commitment with existing concerns around evictions. With Larchmont/Mamaroneck faith leaders, students worked on developing a locally sourced pro-bono network of lawyers for eviction cases. They also created an online tool to help tenants facing eviction connect with appropriate rental arrears resources and pre-existing legal aid organizations. This online tool was beta tested with the Hudson Valley Justice Center while the students explored a possible online kiosk within their local courts where residents facing eviction could access the digital tool.  

Throughout their junior and senior years, the students worked closely with the Community Resource Center, Legal Services of the Hudson Valley, and the Westchester RIght to Counsel Coalition (R2C). Students engaged in a variety of tactics during this time, including drafting and lobbying for local resolutions (4 in total were passed - Village of Mamaroneck, Village of Larchmont, Town of Mamaroneck, and City of Port Chester), generating calls and emails to the county elected officials, and organizing youth education and outreach. The students also pushed for additional resolutions in other municipalities across the county and rallied support amongst existing youth organizations for the right to counsel. In their final year, they also drafted and circulated a sign-on letter for Westchester clergy in support of the Office of Housing Counsel bill. Ultimately, these students pushed for and supported a county-wide right to counsel legislation in concert with NY state legislative support. 

The students stayed connected with local coalitions such as the Westchester Right to Counsel Coalition even after graduation from MHS in 2022. The students, now college freshmen, continued to advocate for the county legislation's passage by speaking in support of county legislation (Office of Housing Counsel bill) during the Board of Legislators' May 1st meeting both in person and remotely. The County Board of Legislators unanimously passed the bill on Monday, May 15th and on Wednesday, May 31, 2023, County Executive George Latimer signed into law the Office of Housing Counsel. Three of the students, Caitlyn Carpenter, Anna McDonald, Alison Hecht, were recognized by county legislator Catherine Parker for their tremendous work during their time in OCRA.

Low voter turnout continues to weaken representation and engagement in local government, which is something Daniel March, Jackson Owen, Justin Solis, and Olivia Sundin (class of 2022) discovered during their initial research. Students discovered that this problem is made worse because local elections aren’t aligned with presidential and congressional races, placing additional costs on voters during off-year elections. Research has shown that one reason for low voter turnout is the frequency, timing, and number of elections. 

After analyzing local and national election data, OCRA students found a positive correlation between even year elections and increased voter turnout. By aligning local elections with federal elections, their project provided an important first step towards increasing voter engagement in local elections by lowering the “costs” of voting. The students’ proposal, which takes the form of a ballot referendum in the Village of Mamaroneck during a November election, moves local elections to the November election day of even numbered years and increases the lengths of terms of trustees from two to four years while living the mayor’s term at 2 years. This will eliminate off-year elections, continue to stagger the trustee and mayor’s terms, and, most importantly, increase voter participation in local elections.

After their initial education and outreach, which included multiple meetings with elected officials and community groups as well as presentations to good government organizations over their junior and senior years, the student also oversaw a petition drive to demonstrate strong support amongst the Village of Mamaroneck’s voting age population for a ballot referendum passed by the Mamaroneck trustees. Ultimately, the students believe that the residents should decide if they want to simplify the voting process. The current Board of Trustees agreed, voting in February 2023 to put the decision to voters with a ballot referendum for the November 2023 election. However, the ballot referendum will be structured so that both trustees and mayor will have 4 year terms falling on even numbered years.

Concerned with the environmental impact of single-use plastics and inspired by the local ban on single-use plastic bags, this group of OCRA students - Larissa Bertini, Marion Karp, and Katie Loga (class of 2023) - initially sought to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of single-use plastics by restaurants in the Village of Larchmont. Working with community mentors Michael Gottfried and Jenna Haefelin starting in the fall of 2020, the students conducted a literature review on the harmful effects of single-use plastics. That was followed by research on local and state-wide initiatives that reduced or eliminated single-use plastics within the restaurant and hospitality industries, e.g., Westport, CT.   They sought to understand the what, why, and how of such initiatives to better understand the best strategies and practices for reducing single-use plastics.

This research led to a focus on local restaurants given their large-scale usage of single-use plastics. Students conducted interviews with local restaurant owners, elected officials, and other stakeholders. Students then analyzed the interviews to better understand the individual restaurant’s plastic usage as well as other stakeholders' opinions, questions, and concerns.  Based on restaurants’ plastic usage, students constructed a comprehensive spreadsheet comparing single-use plastic items with comparable eco-friendly, aka green, alternatives. The students designed and launched a 30-day, cost-free pilot program with four participating local restaurants to better understand the potential of eco-friendly products for businesses and customers. The aforementioned spreadsheet proved crucial in helping restaurant owners easily select eco-friendly products for the 30-day pilot. This 30-day pilot or feasibility study, which can be, and has been, presented before other interested restaurants and municipalities, represents an important case study for reducing the carbon footprint within the local community. 

Upon completion of the case study, the OCRA students designed an informational how-to packet on “upon request only” practices for reducing single-use plastics at local restaurants. Continuing to develop existing relationships with the business community, students educated and assisted restaurants in moving towards an “upon request only” system whereby customers must request utensils and condiments instead of automatically including these items in takeout orders. This how-to packet was distributed throughout the summer and fall of 2022. That same fall students became aware of similar efforts at the county level, specifically the County Board of Legislators. Looking to leverage their work and expand its impact, students worked with county legislators on their draft piece of “upon request only” legislation. Given the OCRA students’ research and initiatives, they were able to make substantive suggested edits and thus improve the draft legislation.  

In the meantime, OCRA students drafted resolutions supporting the county’s draft “upon request only” legislation, which was passed by the Village of Larchmont and the Town of Mamaroneck. They designed and oversaw a petition drive in support of the legislation.  On March 6, 2023, after public comments made by the OCRA students and other environmental advocates, which included members of the Federated Conservationists of Westchester County, the Westchester County Board of Legislators unanimously passed the “Foodware” law, aka “upon request only” policies for all food establishments.

Starting their sophomore year, Lyla Hurley, Vivi Loigman, and Sofia Rosenbaum focused on helping MHS reach its sustainability goals by increasing the capture of clean, marketable recyclable materials. This began with improving and expanding student education regarding recycling. The students then researched the benefits of a dual-stream system versus the current single-stream system (MHS was operating under a single-stream system). Simultaneously, the students collected data at the classroom level, conducting a randomized collection and analysis of classroom garbage and recycling bins. They were most concerned with rates of contamination - when liquid contents infiltrate paper products and/or non-recyclable materials are intermingled with recyclables. That field research was expanded to include the large outdoor dumpsters used for collection by the carting company. 

With data in hand, and additional research on current carting company’s potential services and costs, the students presented their case about the necessity of switching from single to dual-stream recycling, which the students argued captured more high-grade recyclables that are more likely to be recycled. This they argued helped the district better reach its sustainability goals. In August 2022, the Board of Education voted to implement a dual-stream recycling system at Mamaroneck based on the students’ research and advocacy.

 The students spent their senior year assisting with implementation and education of the new system.  During the winter months, the students did a full evaluation of the system, which included content analysis, contamination assessment, and custodian interviews and surveys.  This evaluation was presented to the Board of Education in the spring of 2023.

As sophomores, Luca Giobbio, Griffin McIntyre, and Eli Tannenbaum (class of 2023) sought to better understand the documented phenomenon known as “summer slide”. Summer Slide is the growing learning gap observed in the summer months between students that participate in formal/informal educational opportunities and/or enrichment programs and those that don’t. This learning gap tends to break down along socioeconomic lines. Working with the district central administration, reading specialists, and librarians, the students were able to better understand why and where the learning gap was occurring as well as steps taken by the district to address the issue. One point the research repeatedly highlighted, according to the students,was the importance of convenient, inexpensive book access.  In other words, students must be able to curate large personal libraries at home during the summer months. 

 Inspired by the concept of Little Free Library, as well as supporting existing district initiatives, the students developed and launched the Community Book Depot (aka Depot). The Depot is a large, free-standing library regularly stocked with books curated specifically for students in grades 3 through 5 below grade reading levels. The Depot’s specific location was based on data showing clusters of below grade level readers within a particular geographic area. Students attending the nearest elementary school participate in an annual design contest, which determines the appearance of the Community Book Depot. The student with the winning design is honored at the annual kick off event in mid-June.  The Depot is open to any interested students from mid June to early September. Afterwhich, the Depot is uninstalled and stored for the school year.  In order to extend the positive impact of the Depot, the students fostered a collaborative relationship with the Literacy Ambassadors Club during their senior year. Given Literacy Ambassadors Club’s goals, it is taking over the Community Book Depot initiative for the 2024 season and beyond.