Last weekend was a special time for the SAS community: hundreds of parents gathered around campus to celebrate their children’s academic, athletic, and artistic achievements. The campus was filled with chattering and laughter, embroidering a beautiful picture of fall with joy and grace.

In Parents Weekend, the Environmental Stewards saw an exciting opportunity to make an impact. The fundraising action group leaders, Hannah Gilheany ’24 and Caroline Meers ’24, planned out a fundraiser for the installation of on-dorm composters—a huge step towards greater campus sustainability. The compost bins will reduce total campus waste sent to landfills, and will take food waste on campus and turn it into nutrient-rich compost. The dorm composters would also be a pilot program to test out the composting system’s functionality at school and build good habits, which will hopefully lead to a campus-wide composting system. 

The fundraising event was centered on the sale of baked goods and student-designed prints. With the action group members taking turns running the sales booths, the prints were sold in front of Forbes and Engelhard before the play production and musical performances (a perfect collision of arts), while bake sales took place at the sports fields (heightening the spirits of spectators). A special shoutout to Mr. Meier for providing his own prints and helping out with the printing process and Ms. Pressman for baking some very delicious cookies! 

With the warmth and support of parents, students, and faculty, the event was extremely successful. The action group raised around a total amount of $2000, three times more than their goal of $650. Excess donations will go toward other sustainability projects led by Environmental Stewards.

This event was not only a fundraising success, but it was also a creative combination of nature and art. Helen Heuer ’23, Sophie Mo ’24, and Grey Dugdale ’25 were the main designers of the amazing prints sold during this event.

Helen’s fundraiser print utilizes a surfer aesthetic that she has always loved. And, after showing her design t to Mr. Meier, they decided that it would be a great fit to advertise fall’s annual Pond Day—a day during which students spend the morning participating in nature activities led by faculty. 

“What’s important about Pond Day is to go outside,” Helen said, “and this print conveys this message.”

Grey also shares insight about his design: “I would say that just as it is important that we treat our own areas with respect, it’s even more important to treat the whole world with respect. Although our small impact has a small reaction in the world, all of us collectively can make decisions about big problems. That’s the message of my print. That’s how we can help the environment.”

Finally, with the brain power of the entire action group, Sophie’s design (seen above left) is a poster for an imaginary band called “Nurture Nature.” 

She said, “I collabed with the entire club. I was the one who drew it out. So originally, my whole idea was that I wanted to make a band poster and then we make the band’s name ‘Nurture Nature’. The trees have no leaves on it. The song names are common slogans for the sustainability movement, and are the leaves of the tree. The text 'Performing’ is as if the band is promoting a concert. These are the songs that they are going to sing at the concert. In the bottom right corner, it says ‘one lifetime only’, because bands always say things like one night only, and for Earth, we only have a lifetime only. You better ‘enjoy’ it. Circles on the left bottom are like planets and lines are fluid like water. Circular and wavy. Just like nature.”