Seaside high schoolers garden for change

Published 3:00 pm Monday, March 3, 2025

Three Seaside high schoolers have collaborated with Pacific Ridge Elementary School students to bring a little more green to their campuses and spread awareness of climate change along the way.

Stella Reeves, Chantrell Lee and Bailey Jones are part of the Future Business Leaders of America chapter at Seaside High School. Within the organization, groups of students work on developing projects with the goal of competing in a state conference this April.

“Our peers are working on, like, computer designs, app development, but we specifically chose the community service aspect,” Lee said.

Last year, the trio developed an environmental club called the Pacific Youth Project in an effort to promote youth leadership and advocacy against climate change. They assembled a group of third grade students, spoke to them about environmental issues and let them lead their own initiatives.

The teams landed on a planting project for the high school and elementary school, and sold merchandise at the high school in order to raise money for planter boxes. The boxes have popped up around the campuses, and they hope that more will be cultivated in the coming years. Reeves and Jones are seniors, so it’s up to Lee, a junior, and the third graders to keep the project going.

The high schoolers wanted a way to highlight the elementary school’s involvement with the project. Initially, Lee said, they had planned on painting handprints onto the planters. But as rainy weather persisted, they decided to have the kids paint rocks to place next to the garden.

“We’re planning on going into third, fourth and fifth grade classrooms with a program called Bloom Buddies that I’m going to carry on into next year,” she said. “And we hope to just teach them about climate advocacy, but on a lower level, about photosynthesis and how they can plant their own gardens at home, where we can have them bring home plants and just teach them how to garden in general.”

Care for the environment and the issue of climate change have been drivers for the trio’s project, which they’ve been developing for two and a half years.

“Thinking about the future of climate change, thinking about the future of our world, it’s scary,” said Reeves. “But gardening gives a new sense of hope and perspective when we work towards a difference as a community, which was one of our goals.

“It’s beautiful and really inspiring how this community comes together for the greater good. And we take pride in our initiative and the passions that become prevalent in the minds of those that we teach.”

Most importantly, Reeves said, the Future Business Leaders of America program has given the trio the opportunity and responsibility to extend their passion for the environment into everything they do, including passing it on to the next generation.