Cardozo High School has many clubs and activities dedicated to a variety of topics. Among these clubs is Cardozo’s very own Green Team, a club dedicated to helping the environment and cleaning up our school. Shelby Cruces Jativa, one of the presidents of Green Team, shared her experiences with her leadership position.
“It was last year, I came to the school and I was looking for clubs cause I love to be in clubs. I saw the green team, and I always loved the environment and helping out anyway I can. So, I was like, ‘this is perfect!’” she recalled. Cruces Jativa expressed an extreme interest in protecting her environment and wants to help in any way she can.
The Green Team president revealed her journey to becoming president through staying active within the club. Helping out any way she could, and attending most meetings. Now as president, there are more challenges she faces.
“It’s difficult planning the things we can do, because we want to do cleanups,” she explained. “But you know sometimes it’s either snowing or too cold, and other times it’s just that we don’t have the right materials or opportunity to do things.”
“Kendra, our other president, and our club advisors help out a lot to make things easier,” Cruces Jativa claimed. She stresses the importance of having people to help you out and the benefits of a strong community. “It’s good to have people to rely on when I’m struggling.”
She revealed her favorite part about the Green Team, saying, “I like the way we can do things together. I feel like we’re pretty close so it’s like doing things together as friends. Helping out other people together like we help out each other and we help out the world.”
The community in the Green Team is very important to the club and they strongly support each other through the group activities they do, such as cleaning, upcycling, and spreading awareness about how to keep the environment cleaner.
“I really like that we can also do upcycling things,” Cruces Jativa added. “Helping out the environment in any way that we can with activities and hands-on things is really fun.”
Cruces Jativa hopes to spread more awareness about the Green Team and how they benefit our school. She stated, “We are currently trying to get every room in the school all three colored bins to promote recycling. We’ll have fewer roaches that way.” She even showed us the checklist the Green Team has and explained that all members contribute to marking down what rooms have what bins.
The Green Team president left off with one final statement about her beloved club, sharing, “Green Team is a great place to join. Everyone there is super friendly and it’s really good if you’d want to help the world. We do things like upcycling and cleaning up, it’s really fun and it’s good to be kind to your environment.”