Benton, Arkansas

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Grass Roots Youth Summit Attendees Consider
Regional Sustainability Challenges and Solutions

A group of students from the Benton Mayor’s Youth Council joined students, educators, and facilitators from throughout central Arkansas at the Clinton School of Public Service Saturday, April 3, for the first Grass Roots Youth Summit, designed to engage area youth in helping grow a regional Green Agenda to create a more sustainable region.

“Our science club at school recently started emphasizing recycling more, but there were some really cool ideas that were brought up at the summit that we can start to consider as well,” said Elliott Baxley, a senior at Benton High School and a member of the Benton Mayor’s Youth Council. “I don’t think the environment is a high priority with a lot of people and I think it should be.”

Forty students representing high schools and junior highs in Pulaski, Faulkner, Saline, and Lonoke counties developed and prioritized what they considered the five most important sustainability issues impacting the region before dividing up into teams tasked with considering obstacles and possible solutions for each issue. The issues included transportation, pollution/recycling, energy, global warming, and creating awareness for all these issues.

“I was a part of the group that worked on awareness and we came up with some great slogans and ideas to help create awareness in the community about some of these issues,” said Lindsey Martin, a ninth-grader at Benton Junior High. “The whole atmosphere was great. The brainstorming sessions really produced some great ideas.”

At the end of the Summit, students were asked to commit to at least five sustainable activities – from drinking more tap water to help eliminate plastic water bottles to considering alternative forms of transportation to help reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and air pollution – that they would practice in the future.

“One thing I committed to was iQuit or quitting drinking bottled water,” said Benton High School junior Cameron Bowden,. “I always thought it’s probably not the most environmentally-friendly thing to do, but after watching a video at the summit on how much waste those plastic bottles create, I know I need to stop doing that immediately. I expected to gain new perspectives and hear different opinions and I did get that. I just didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did.”

“I saw a lot of people who care about making a change,” said Megan Matthew of Bryant High School. “And the more people that are involved, the more they can change things.”

The Grass Roots Youth Summit was the first stage of a three-stage effort that will also include a public engagement and feedback period from April 19 – May 9 and the development of a Regional Green Agenda for our area later this year. Metroplan, the regional planning organization for central Arkansas, is coordinating the Grass Roots effort.

“Because we’re planning for the future, it’s appropriate for the future leaders of our area to be involved in the process,” said Metroplan’s Jasmin Moore. “Starting April 19, we will be asking everyone in central Arkansas to tell us what is important to them and how they think we should be addressing those issues on a regional basis. Then, after the region tells us what is most important, we will take that information and start developing a Regional Green Agenda.”
Area residents can visit www.grassrootscentral.org for more information as well as to access links to Grass Roots blogs, videos, and social media sites. A regional photo contest will be announced soon and a live voting tool will be added to the site April 19 – allowing everyone the opportunity to provide suggestions and vote on ideas submitted by their neighbors.