Texas Teens Reduce Waste Created by Fast Fashion with Clothing Donation Drive

The Climate Leaders Fellowship‘s fall 2023 cycle challenged high school students to research climate change in their communities and find local solutions. Partnering with local organizations, the students launched donation drives to support people in need, and collaborated with other students worldwide to achieve their goals.

The fellowship is offered as a collaboration between Stanford University’s Deliberative Democracy Lab and the Rustic Pathways Foundation.

Read about Lena’s experience below!

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Lena Squyres
Age 16
Bullard, Texas

My real name is Karolina Squyres, but if moving around multiple times will teach you anything, it’s to keep things short and simple, so I like to go by Lena. Helps people with pronunciation too!

I currently live in a VERY tiny town called Bullard, Texas. I’m sixteen years old, and I LOVE to read. Probably a bit too much since it’s not that uncommon to find me nestled in bed with my face in a book when I have unfinished homework five feet away on my desk.

Speaking of reading, my goal for 2023 was to read 80 books, something I’m proud to say I accomplished. I read multiple books by multiple authors across dozens of genres throughout the year, and yet there was one thing that was always present in every story I read; the world in which it took place. Each story was set in its own world, just like we are on Earth.

This brought to my attention, however, that if every author has control over their environment, why don’t we? Temperatures rising, ice melting, I felt the need to make a change. So, I started to look for opportunities around me to do such a thing.

I looked around my school and discovered the Local Business Mission club, run by my friends Eugene Choi and Jessie Choi, that promoted making a difference. I was thrilled. I joined and soon after was encouraged to become a member of the Climate Leaders Fellowship to combat climate change, specifically the effects of waste created by fast fashion.

We split our club into two teams to begin our project of reducing the need to resort to fast fashion industries in the first place by helping those without proper clothes or shelter in the cold months.

As a team, we decided to begin collecting and donating clothes from people at our school to the West Erwin Benevolence Church. We understood that we needed to get the word out, while also increasing engagement with our project, so we released fun posters that promoted an entertaining competition and a prize system for the people who donated the most clothing. The posters were then hung in the school hallways to attract the most attention.

This method worked as the student body came together to donate a total of 300 clothing items. It’s safe to say we, as well as the members at West Erwin, were increasingly pleased! The clothes were donated and given to the people who needed them most.

In conclusion, participating in the Climate Leaders Fellowship made me feel so inspired to further help my community in ways that extend beyond my time with CLF. I’m incredibly proud of the work my team leaders, fellow team members, and I were able to accomplish by working together.

My goal in life is to leave the world a better place than it was when I came into it, and I believe that through the encouragement the Climate Leaders Fellowship provided, I’m one step closer to doing so. Thank you!