Students learning life skills in business: A local student business club raised enough money selling products, made in partnership with a local business, to plant trees in the community.
Friday morning, students in the Build-A-Business Club at Sinsheimer Elementary School in San Luis Obispo assisted ECOSLO, the Environmental Center of San Luis Obispo, in planting three trees at Sinsheimer Park. This tree planting came about with the help of the Downtown SLO business, Junk Girls, where students participated in a month-long program to create print and metal-stamped art to sell at the Junk Girls store.
Over the last few weeks, the program raised $1,500 to donate to ECOSLO and plant the trees on Arbor Day.
“My favorite part was just the thought that the Junk Girls put in for this. It’s so amazing that they’re willing to help the environment and help us try to become our own business owners someday,” said Genevieve Palazzo, a 5th grader at Sinsheimer Elementary. “It’s also awesome that ECOSLO is taking their time to do this for us. This whole experience warmed my heart.”
“Yeah, same. It’s incredible that Jenny and Melissa (Jenny Kompolt and Melissa James, owners of Junk Girls) got to be able to do this with us and how ECOSLO was able to do this with us and help us plant trees for the community. It was really nice,” said Sophia Bastidas, a 5th grader at Sinsheimer Elementary.
ECOSLO’s program coordinator, Grant Helete, told KSBY they partner with schools and organizations in the area on other projects like this as part of their Urban Tree Planning "Keys for Trees" program. Planting trees citywide is part of San Luis Obispo’s goal of becoming carbon-neutral by the year 2035.
Click here for a previous story we covered.
