A few weeks ago, we encouraged you to take part in the voting process for the Green Effect contest, sponsored by National Geographic Magazine and FritoLay’s SunChips brand. Tricia Elisara, who is part of the Creation Care Study Program community, piloted a Green Classroom Party Kits idea that was a finalist in the contest, dependent on a popular vote to win a $20,000 grant and continue producing party kits for local classrooms in her region of California.
Well, your votes paid off, and the Green Classroom Party Kits won! The idea is one of five that will receive the $20,000 grant, recognition in National Geographic Magazine, and a special reception for Tricia and her son in Washington, DC. Tricia shared with us that she’ll use the grant money to create 20 more kits for the classrooms in her son’s elementary school, and then 80-85 more kits for other schools in the area. The team of elementary school kids that conceived and created the first classroom party kit will be empowered to introduce the idea to other schools, and from there the idea will grow.
Tricia’s inspiration for caring for creation, working with students to create the kits, and for entering the contest in the first place stems from her faith:
“As a Christian,” she says, “I believe in the Bibilcal notion of shalom, of God’s wholeness and completeness, and right relationships between things: between us and God, between us and our neighbor, between us and the earth. Scripture says ‘the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.’ There is no thing that shalom can’t or shouldn’t touch.”
Congratulations, Tricia and the Green Classroom Party Kits team, on extending God’s shalom a little further!
View Tricia’s Green Classroom Party Kits winning entry here!
