EARTH DAY! Redmond High School Student Wins National Environmental "Planet Connect" Award

Rachel Nakanishi, a senior at Redmond High School, has been awarded a National Environmental Education Foundation Planet Connect grant. Rachel’s grant will be used for her “1,000 Cup Challenge.”

She noticed that customers at her local Starbucks did not know about or use Starbucks’ discount for reusing Starbucks cups or personal reusable cups.

Rachel plans to challenge their customer base to reuse their cups or bring their own personal cups from home. She will create posters to educate the public about how paper cups increases the store’s carbon footprint. Her poster will show that by using personal cups, pounds of carbon dioxide will be kept from entering the atmosphere. Rachel hopes that her project can serve as a model to be used by many other businesses to stem global warming.

The funding for this project will be used to purchase a Starbucks-approved trash container for recycling, a Starbucks approved trash container for composting, and bio bags for composting. Planet Connect is a component of Classroom Earth, a national initiative in partnership with The Weather Channel. Planet Connect is an interactive social networking site for teens interested in the environment.

Rachel is one of only 29 students from across the country to receive such a grant and one of two from Washington. She and the other students will serve as national models for how high school students can take an active role in improving an environmental issue within their school or community.

Take the Starbucks "Take the Mug Challenge" discount for using personal cups over single-use Starbuck paper cups.

For more information on the Planet Connect grant to Rachel contact LWSD: Kathryn Reith, Director of Communications, (425) 702-3342Shannon Parthemer, Community Relations & Communications Coordinator, (425) 702-3300