Tree-Plenish

Tree-Plenish
Will Burke
January 29, 2021

I interviewed Grace Donohue, leader of the MHS Environmental Club, about a new organization she is choosing to support through the club and her thoughts on the environment.

What is Tree-Plenish?

It is an organization that was started by Sethu Odayappan when he was a highschooler in Mansfield, MA. He took issue with the enormous amount of paper that his school was using every year, and decided to do something about it. He started the project to plant enough trees to off-set his school’s paper usage in a year, and then the project grew into a larger organization that he runs with other college students as a current sophomore at Harvard. He has a whole team of people working in organizing, digital communications, finance, public relations, and more. In the past few years, they have expanded the organization to work with schools across the country to offset their paper usage.

What is Tree-Plenish’s goal?

According to their website, their mission is to “create more sustainable schools by replenishing the environment with these lost resources. Through student-led events, Tree-Plenish is able to plant trees in the community based on approximations of school paper usage.” They also want to encourage student leadership and community involvement to come together under the goal of environmental sustainability.

How did you become involved in the organization?

A friend of my mom’s, Debi Dubois (she is from Melrose and has 2 kids, but they both went to and graduated from the Mystic Valley Charter School), is a member of the Melrose organization Keep Melrose Beautiful. Their organization is mostly about trash clean up and keeping Melrose facilities pristine. I am not sure how she found out about TreePlenish, but I believe she was in contact with Sethu (who leads the organization) and she approached me to get the MHS environmental club involved. We met with Sethu sometime in the fall and then launched the project in Melrose.

What makes you passionate about doing your part to fight for the environment?

Environmental sustainability and responsibility has always been an important part of my family’s values. My mom works as Melrose’s sustainability manager and has done so for over 10 years, and so she is always looking for ways that my family can reduce our carbon footprint through reducing the waste we produce, limiting our consumption of goods in general, and trying to end our dependence on fossil fuels. We’ve had solar panels on our house since I was in elementary school, my parents both drive electric cars, and just recently we had a ground-source heat pump installed in our backyard to heat and cool our home without the use of gas and with very minimal electricity. My mom’s work has inspired me to be more engaged in environmental sustainability, but I’ve also been struck by the “Greta Thunberg Effect.” It is really disheartening to know that as much as I work to improve my own carbon footprint, I really can’t make much of a difference if the government continues to neglect their responsibility to respond to climate change for the sake of our future. We’re already late to the game and we should have been transitioning off fossil fuels as a nation decades ago, and Massachusetts (which is currently the state leading the effort for climate justice and a sustainable future) is just now in the process of planning and taking actual steps towards change.

How can people support Tree-Plenish, and what are some ways high schoolers can reduce their environmental impact?

People can support Tree-Plenish by reserving trees on our website for only $5! Sometime in February/March, we will start putting out sign ups for people to volunteer in the actual tree planting on April 24th.

In terms of ways for high schoolers to reduce their environmental impact, here are some individual lifestyle changes they can make:

• Eat less meat and dairy products

• Stop wasting food! Use up what you have in your fridge

• Limit your purchases and consumption of new items and instead use things that already exist! This can be thrift shopping/antiquing, using sites like Ebay, ThreadUp, and a million others, using your local “buy nothing” Facebook group when you need something like mugs or a car seat, going through your parent’s old clothes, and any other way you can think of

• Shop and eat local!

• Drive as little as you can (bike, walk, skateboard, roller blade, run, take the train or bus, carpool)

• Turn your lights out

• If you can afford to splurge, choose to spend your money at companies/businesses that are environmentally sustainable and ethical

• Pay attention to important environmental initiatives and laws, especially at a local level (like the recent Climate law that was vetoed by Gov. Baker or the plastic bag bans in Melrose)

• Join environmental organizations!

• Reach out to legislators

• Donate to organizations that support environmental issues, especially Native American communities who are fighting for clean air, water, and land on their reservations

• Vote with your money

• VOTE VOTE VOTE! Pay attention to candidates’ views on climate change and environmental sustainability, like the upcoming Boston mayoral race!