DISTRICT 203 and 204 Students Lead Movement for Positive Change

DISTRICT 203 AND 204 STUDENTS LEAD MOVEMENT FOR POSITIVE CHANGE

Students of Meadow Glens’ Elementary School Environmental Club in Naperville School District’s 203, along with several other schools across Naperville have teamed up with a Naperville environmental organization, Bring Your Own Bag Naperville, to coordinate an awareness event on April 18th at Casey’s Food Store in Naperville to share the importance of reusable bags.

Founded in June 2019 by Meadow Glens Teacher, Kristen Kainrath, Bring Your Own Bag Naperville’s mission is to encourage a meaningful shift from single use to reusable bags through education and coordination with businesses and environmental organizations.

Kainrath was inspired after spending time in Europe during the summer of 2019.

“It was profoundly eye-opening to not see a single plastic bag anywhere,” she says. “It was an accepted part of the culture; they just carried their bags into stores, shopped, and went on with their day.”

After returning home, Kainrath began researching the progress of limiting single-use bags here in the states and discovered Illinois cities such as Chicago, Evanston, Oak Park, Woodstock, and Edwardsville have already passed laws regarding this environmental issue.

Kainrath received encouragement from Bring It! Chicago Founder, Jordan Parker who was instrumental in changing legislation in the big city, as well as increasing public awareness and community support around the issues of plastic pollution, climate change, and how they relate to disposable bag use.

“One simple thing we can do on an individual level is make smarter decisions about how we shop every day that reduce the amount of plastic and paper waste in our world,” Parker says. Naperville is a family-oriented community that is joining the movement not only in Illinois but worldwide, towards protecting the future for our children. Five municipalities in Illinois have already passed pollution-reducing single-use bag policies that have been proven to work at motivating positive behavioral change, and we are confident that Naperville will be the next to vote YES for reusable bags and NO for single-use plastic and paper bag pollution.”

Kainrath is already drawing the attention of environmental clubs across town who all want to be a part of positive change!

Neuqua Valley High School Teacher Gillian Schneider is Neuqua’s Environmental Club (NVeco) co-sponsor and is excited to join the mission and participate in the April event with club members. The Neuqua club is extremely passionate about encouraging the community to avoid single-use plastic and Styrofoam and has grown from 5 members to over 100 members in the past couple of years.

Kingsley Elementary School Honors Math and Project Idea teacher, Kathy Schoengrund, does an Ecology Unit with her 4th and 5th grade Project Idea students and feels the upcoming event is an excellent extension of her classroom learning setting and cannot wait to participate.

Environmental Clubs from Naperville Central and Naperville North High Schools, as well as Prairie and Scott Elementary are also on board and the word seems to be spreading fast!

To join the movement, visit the Bring Your Own Bag Naperville Facebook Group at

https://www.facebook.com/groups/426277394932015/ or email questions to Kristen Kainrath at bringyourownbagnaperville1@gmail.com.

The next meeting is scheduled for March 19th at 6 p.m. at the Naperville Public Library located at 3015 Cedar Glade Road, Room A in Naperville. R.S.V.P. at https://www.facebook.com/events/302720517351026/

Walk-ins welcome!