Meredith Howe and Emily Jenkins from the Summer 2014 semester returned home to their sending schools with a goal to reduce the daily amount of plastic that they consumed. This goal led to the creation of a group called the Broken Bottle Project with the help of a third friend, Meghan Vonck. The catch is that each of the three friends attended a different school in the same district. Meredith is a senior at Forrest Hills Northern, Emily is from Forrest Hills Central and Meghan is from Forrest Hills Eastern. The three of them banded together to reduce plastic water bottle usage across their entire district. We caught up with Meredith and Emily to learn just how they are accomplishing that goal and what they have planned next.

After returning home from The Island School, both Meredith and Emily enthusiastically rejoined their high school communities. Meredith jumped into the Forrest Hills student government and was elected as President of the 90-person committee leading the school. In addition to her work with the Broken Bottle Project, Meredith is currently “in the midst of planning a community outreach day where our entire school will be going out into the community to serve at nonprofit organization on April 21.” Recently, Meredith found out that she will be attending Ohio University this fall and playing on their volleyball team. Emily also recently found out that she will be attending Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, CA, where she intends to study Environmental Studies and Sustainability. This past winter Emily was also an integral part of her school’s varsity ski team which “made it to the state championship!! Whoopee!!!!”

For Meredith and Emily, the Broken Bottle Project “started with a passion for the environment and a passion to make a difference.” For Emily in particular, her passion for bettering the health of our planet stemmed from what she learned at the Island School. Inspiration came in the form of a teacher from Forrest Hills’ Gone Boarding class (a senior-only class where students design and build their own surfboard, longboard or snowboard and create a business partnership with snowboarding giant Burton) who prompted Meredith to think about what she could do to “get our district more informed and excited about the environment.” That same teacher then put Meredith in contact with Emily and Meghan who, after several months of planning, launched the Broken Bottle Project. Together they had “noticed the numerous people in our high schools drinking from single-use plastic water bottles, and we decided we wanted to change this.” Together, the three of them set out to initiate change throughout their entire school district.

The Island School strives to be a “zero waste” campus and a model of sustainability for the region. While here, this caught the attention of Emily and Meredith. Emily found herself pondering while on a dive “I wonder where this plastic goes?” after witnessing some of it drifting through the reef she was at. Fortunately at The Island School, we answered that question for her and that answer prompted Emily to dramatically reduce the amount of plastic she uses in her day-to-day life at home. She even carries this with her to events where large amounts of plastic bottles are being used, such as “last night at my ski team banquet. I noticed the large amount of plastic water bottles being used and I went out of my way to create a recycle bin. I took all the bottles home and recycled them myself.” For Meredith, her sea-change moment came when she realized the scale of the problem. One plastic bottle will not do much harm, but, what about 1,000? Or 1,000,000 bottles floating in the ocean? It adds up quickly. So too does the effect when people use fewer plastic bottles or recycle them properly.

The solution is simple: reusable water bottles and filling stations around the campuses of the school district to keep those bottles full. Emily, Meredith and Meghan made a connection with MIZU who they agreed would be their ideal supplier for these water bottles. They then agreed on a design that would grace the side of the bottle. Now they are raising money, implementing their water bottle filling stations, and taking care of all the logistics. The goal is to raise about $12,000 which will allow them to meet the wholesale price of the water bottles before they distribute them to the school district. The process of reaching out to sponsors and coordinating a multi-school campaign has taught Emily, Meredith and Meghan a lot. Currently, with graduation on the horizon they are investigating options for how to pass the program off to a new group of student leaders. They expect the project to really take off towards the end of April.

Emily Jenkins (left) and Meredith Howe (right) pose with two of their water bottles

Both Emily and Meredith had some memories and shout outs that they wanted to share:

Meredith wrote-
My favorite memory during my time at IS Su ’14 is searching for the Banyan Tree with Kate, Evie, Annie Gray, and of course Pibl. Also, the first night when the girl’s cabin played “ice breaker” games.
Emily wrote-
From the Island School, I would like to thank all my fellow peers who helped me become the person I am today! At IS, I really grew as a leader and learned so so so much about myself. I am thankful for pals like Clay Starr and the many others who graduated with me!!! My favorite memory from IS is definitely the down island day where we jumped in the ocean hole, explored Hatchet Bay Caves, and camped (in a rain storm) at Club Med!! Honestly one of the best days of my life.

From everyone at The Island School, best of luck to you, Meredith and Emily! You are well on your way to success and we can’t wait to hear more about the awesome things you accomplish!

Catherine Argyrople from the Spring 2014 semester has recently exceeded all of her expectations when it comes to creating a business from scratch. We caught up with her to learn about Catherine Argyrople Photography and how DECA is pushing her to reach new achievements in its competitions.

From a young age, Catherine has always risen to any challenges in front of her. She is a survivor of childhood Neuroblastoma, and if Catherine could beat cancer as a child, she is now well on her way to achieving anything she sets her mind to. Catherine attended the Island School as a sophomore after hearing about it from a family friend while in the sixth grade. Even at such a young age, Catherine had “always been interested in marine conservation and sustainability, so I immediately fell in love with the program and was determined to go when I was old enough!” Catherine had a fantastic time during her semester and completed the half-marathon successfully despite knowing it was going to be a huge challenge for her. After returning home, she chose to continue running long distances, including another half-marathon. The race was in October of 2014 for Dana Farber, a cancer institution in Boston. Catherine has dedicated much of her free time to community service work in support of various cancer organizations like Dana Farber, The Jimmy Fund, and Relay For Life. This continues to be a priority for her because, as a survivor, “I am extremely connected to these local cancer institutions because I was treated there. I also love doing service work in general, and fundraising for Relay For Life allowed me to give back to an organization that did so much for me when I was a cancer patient.”

Another large chunk of Catherine’s time back home has been spent creating her freelance photography business, which has been met with enormous success. Catherine has “worked with over 85 clients in 2015 alone, not only in my hometown of Weston, Massachusetts, but communities over 25 miles away as well.” To say that she is in-demand is a significant understatement! The inspiration for her photography business stemmed from her desire to go on a gap year before attending college. She figured she could use her skills in media and photography, which she had been developing in classes since middle school, to help fund it. So in the fall of 2014, Catherine began her freelance photography and never looked back.

After Catherine’s photography business flourished in the fall, “I decided I wanted to make a business plan to further grow and expand the business.” To follow through on this, she joined her school’s DECA club. DECA is a business competition for high school students in over 3,500 school communities to compete on district, state, and international levels. Each competition features many different categories of events but they all fall under five career clusters. These clusters are: business management/administration, finance, entrepreneurship, hospitality/tourism, and marketing. As Catherine was looking to build a business plan for her photography work, she joined an event in the entrepreneurship category called Business Growth Plan. In her prep for the event, Catherine wrote a 30-page business plan that analyzed her work in Catherine Argyrople Photography and projected how to grow the business over the next five years. In addition to the 30-page report, Catherine crafted a presentation to give at the competition.  Catherine holds herself to high standards with her work and labored for a long time over her business plan. She set a goal for herself of finishing in the top four of the statewide competition, which was the requirement for making it to the international level.  Catherine was thrilled when she surpassed her goal and achieved first place in the category! Her next step is the International Competition held in Nashville in April. Over 15,000 student competitors will be in attendance, which is a huge jump from the 2,500 at the state event in Massachusetts. Her new goal is to finish in the top 10 out of 100+ competitors in the Business Growth category. She is “not sure how feasible this goal is but I am certainly willing to try!”

The competitions can be a huge and daunting task, but Catherine felt “more confident in my project and was really in my element while presenting my business plan in front of the judge. I put my all into this project, so seeing my hard work pay off was so surreal.” In her photography work, Catherine particularly enjoyed getting to know each of her clients during her photoshoots with them. It kept Catherine very busy; to the point where she felt like a “40 year old working mom, but I totally loved the whole experience.” She was busiest on the weekends, when she had 4-5 photoshoots each day. In addition to that, after school on weekdays was usually fully booked as well!

In regards to her future, Catherine has a few goals and dreams. She is still planning on taking her gap year to travel and explore. She will be hearing back from the colleges she applied to soon and will be attending one of them in the fall of 2017 after her gap year is complete. Her career projections for herself include “two media related dream jobs: to be a movie producer like Steven Spielberg or Brian Grazer, or to be an environmental/ anthropogenic documentary producer for National Geographic. When I was at The Island School, I really discovered my interest for environmental advocacy media and can totally envision myself dedicating the rest of my life to this career… The Hollywood movie producer fantasy is just an aspiration I’ve always dreamed of.” Given her track record of reaching goals, it seems like Catherine is well on her way!

When asked what Catherine’s favorite moment from her semester was, Catherine replied with a well thought-out answer which is printed in its entirety below: “My favorite moment of my semester definitely had to be finishing the half marathon. Even though I had trained for the past three months with my best friend and running buddy, Greta, it never totally sank in that I could actually run a half marathon. The half marathon symbolized a seemingly unattainable goal, due to my health complications from having cancer at a young age. On our long exercise days before the half marathon, I just remember running on the bridge from CEI to the center of campus and feeling like I was flying. I had never felt so confident in myself before that moment, and I was just in total euphoria. When I finished the real half marathon, I felt the same way… It was a feeling I had never experienced before, something so foreign to me but so special at the same time. From that day on, I have learned to have confidence in myself and my abilities. While that sounds pretty cliche, it is 100% true. Beating cancer made me a survivor, but emotionally hindered my confidence until I went to The Island School. Participating in DECA and winning states made me feel that same euphoria and sense of pride in my achievements as the half marathon did, and I really hope to experience many future moments like these.”

Catherine, best of luck to you as you hear back from colleges and compete in the DECA international competition. All of us at The Island School are rooting for you and hoping to hear about more of your successes!

The Island School recently had a chance to catch up with Anna Carrol from the Spring 2009 semester. She has moved out west to join a Military Veterans rehabilitation program called Heroes and Horses, as their Administrative Director. We wanted to know the story of how she got there, so we asked! Like most alumni who return from The Island School, Anna spent her “senior year of high school missing the Island School, applying to colleges, and dreaming of run swims.”  Anna was accepted into Middlebury which has a strong community of Island School alumni and began to create a “family away from family” during her years there while studying as an English and Creative Writing major along with the pre-reqs for veterinary school. While attending Middlebury, Anna took a semester off to work in Morocco at a free, large animal veterinary clinic called the American Fondouk. The American Fondouk provides free care to thousands of animals each year in Morocco, and as Anna had spent a large amount of time working with and writing about horses at Middlebury, the work there resonated with her. Once Anna was home again, she was inspired to move out west to follow through on her dreams. Upon graduation she said goodbye to her friends and family and moved out west to Bozeman, Montana to work at Heroes and Horses “living in paradise at Good Dog Farm, with my wolf dog Shota, two horses, and three best buds.”

Many teenagers go through a period of their lives when they feel as if they are at a crossroads. For Anna, that crossroads occurred during her time at The Island School when she “was on the cusp of trying to live my dreams, but was definitely scared out of my mind and letting that hesitance hold me back.” The Island School and the Spring 2009 semester made her “a brave person at a time when I really needed bravery.” At one point during the semester, Chris Maxey talked “about returning from Eleuthera and becoming ‘Island School Heroes.’ Whether it was in our personal or professional lives, he was always inspiring us to change the world for the better and to never give up the fight.” Better still, it was not just Chris Maxey supporting Anna to follow her dreams, but the entire community of the school which “made it feel like anything was possible, each day.” If you believe it, it becomes true.

Anna has always had a love for horses, so it was no surprise that when she interviewed Micah Fink, the Executive Director of Heroes and Horses, for a feature article that she was working on as a writer, the two of them would begin a lasting friendship. They quickly discovered that each one shared “a lot of core values about how horses and wilderness heal the body and the mind.” So when Micah asked Anna to join the team, it was a natural fit. For Anna, this was a dream come true as she “couldn’t believe that a job like that would be possible.” When asked about a typical day in the office at Heroes and Horses, Anna’s easy answer was, “basically…there is no typical day, which I love!” Heroes and Horses is a small organization so everyone multi-tasks constantly between work in the office and work outside with the horses and veterans. Just like at The Island School, unexpected events can and do happen all the time. Anna could be “writing an email to a volunteer group but then I get a call that Julia the mule busted out of the pasture fence. The computer closes, and we grab our boots to go take care of the herd.” The work and the program as a whole is heavily experiential as exhibited by what happens when you call the office on a Friday:

“You will get a voicemail reminding you that we are at the ranch because that’s the day we ride and train. We also have off-season and trip season. May-September, I will be running 10-day long pack trips with the veteran participants every two weeks. The horses and I will go a lot of miles in the mountains. In the off-season, we are fundraising, developing programs, and strategizing about how to serve better.”

For Anna, being hired at Heroes and Horses was a major moment. In her words, “the trajectory of my outlook on life completely changed.” Suddenly, Anna had transitioned from the life of a college student to a job where “I got to help people, ride in the mountains, and share with others in need the power of horses to heal and challenge the human spirit–all things I had dreamed of spending my days doing, but never dared to hope that it might become reality.” Similar to at The Island School where everyone is on the island because they want to be here and love what they do, Anna loves “that I work with people who love what they do every day. It fires me up.” Anna now spends her days in a situation she believes is “the best of both worlds” where she is working and communicating with the people who love what they do and the other is working and communicating with the animals that she has spent her entire life loving.

If Anna’s work is inspiring to you, or if you have further questions for her, Anna can be reached at: anna@heroesandhorses.com

To wrap up The Island School’s conversation with Anna, she had a shout out to the entire Spring 2009 semester:

“Spring 09, I hope you still take the time to play “She’s Royal” whenever you just feel like cranking the tunes. I also hope everybody still rocks their Island School SWEATER. I know I do. Love to all, and nothing but the best wishes for everybody. Thanks for being such a life changing crew. “