Students were challenged to answer the question: What would MLK have done about environmental issues?

Student winners from MLK High School

Martin Luther King High School was a big winner at the ceremony for the Greening Youth Foundation’s environmental video contest, which took place on Friday, May 7, at the Martin Luther King National Historic Site.

Clearly inspired by their namesake, students from King High School in Lithonia produced an impressive short-form movie for the contest, which challenged them to come up with a video or Powerpoint answer to the question: If Dr. King were alive today, how would he approach current environmental issues? King High School won in the category of best high school presentation and also for most creative presentation.

More than 120 people, including students and staff from several Atlanta and Dekalb schools, gathered for the ceremony under a big tent outside the visitors center at the Martin Luther King National Historic Site.

Atlanta City Council member Kwanzaa Hall, sporting his GYF t-shirt

Before the awards were handed out, Atlanta City Council member Kwanzaa Hall addressed the crowd, telling the students that he was encouraged by their efforts to “green our community.”

“You are the best ambassadors for this initiative,” Hall said. “The world is your oyster; the future is yours. It’s up to you all to be the environmental engineers and the marine biologists who are going to help us solve our environmental problems. Without you, the world won’t be all it can be.”

Student winners from Cook Elementary pose with Superintendent Judy Forte

In addition to Martin Luther King High School, other winners were Ed Cook Elementary in Atlanta for best elementary school presentation, BEST Academy in Atlanta for best middle school, and the Girl Scouts Troop of Brumby Elementary in Cobb County for best after-school club. The winning schools received beautiful engraved glass trophies; and the students each received Junior Ranger badges and patches from the National Park Service.

Angelou Ezeilo, Executive Director of the Greening Youth Foundation, told the gathering that she was “floored” by the quality of their presentations.

“Your creativity is amazing,” she said. “I look out at you all and know that you are our future environmental leaders. I know you will be thinking of the next thing that will preserve our national resources.”

Student winners from BEST Academy

In a moving speech, Judy Forte, Superintendent of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, told the students about the lessons that her parents passed along to her and her six brothers and sisters, “that the blessings of the earth do not come free.”

“They taught us that we must serve as faithful stewards of the earth and if we do, it will sustain us, season after season,” Forte said. “Yet today, people are breaking this expectation. Mistakes such as the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are impacting man, plant and animal life along the Gulf Coast, the carbon from the cars we drive is polluting our air and making it difficult for many of us to breath, and the chemicals that are in our food are putting our world—and our way of life—in danger. The places we love, the resources on which we rely, the peoples of the world who are most vulnerable, are all at risk if we do not take action. That is why I am so pleased to partner with the Greening Youth Foundation.  With our Greening Youth partners, we have the opportunity to introduce young people to the National Park Service, expose them to their heritage, as well as to the land their ancestors helped to build.”

Superintendent Judy Forte and GYF Executive Director Angelou Ezeilo

To help inspire the students for the contest, the Greening Youth Foundation launched a partnership effort to bring the students to the MLK National Historic Site in Atlanta, a unit of the National Park Service. The foundation called the contest the “Environmental Series at the MLK Jr. National Historic Site.” Over the past three months, students visited the historic site to learn about King’s life by touring his birth home, his tomb and other important markers in his life and by watching an inspirational video about the Civil Rights Movement. They also met with Park Rangers and Superintendent Forte.

The public school students were members of GYF’s Eco-Force® Clubs that currently operate in elementary, middle and high schools throughout Metro Atlanta.

Girl Scouts winners from Brumby Elementary in Cobb County