As Matt Zehner, the SPARE advisor often says, "It only took 56 people to sign the Declaration of Independence, and that didn't turn out too badly…" SPARE (Students Promoting Awareness of Recycling & the Environment) is a small but motivated group of high schoolers from Branham High School in San Jose, CA.
Branham High was chosen as a demonstration school during the 2007 Go Green Earth Summit. Those attending the Summit got to see up close and personal just how terrific this school is.
- established a school-wide recycling program for cans, bottles, paper, cardboard, ink and toner cartridges, cell phones and E-waste. They have reduced the school's solid waste bill by 20%.
partnered with a company in China to sell them recycled cell phones, chargers and batteries.
- created Adopt-a-Garden to beautify the school using the proceeds from recycling. Planted over 50 trees on campus.
- spent thousands of hours over the last few years transforming a littered area of the campus into Branham Memorial Garden. At one end, a memorial will be built in honor of all the former graduates of the Campbell Union High School District that have fallen in America's wars.
- will buy more than 26 hectares of Amazonian rainforest to offset Branham's 2008 carbon emissions using a $10,000 grant won from British Petroleum
- adopted a mile and a half section of the Guadalupe Creek in south San Jose. SPARE members hold "Creek Clean-up Days" to remove waste from the adopted section.
- fulfilling the Educating Principle of Go Green, they are developing lessons on climate change that will be taught school-wide in order to raise awareness.
