Patriotism usually comes hand-in-hand with volunteering and service to the country, but two WW-P student volunteers are taking patriotism to a different level in conjunction with the second-annual Greening of West Windsor (GroWW) environmental fair on Saturday, October 3, at the West Windsor Community Farmers’ Market.
South senior Jennifer Sharma and junior Sarah Yu are helping to organize student musicians for a performance of the Green National Anthem, an environmental piece written by Julie Lyonn Lieberman, cousin of GroWW chairwoman Heidi Kleinman.
But that has not been the only aspect of the fair in which the two have been involved. From volunteering at the West Windsor Farmers’ Market throughout the summer, in order to promote the fair, to performing an energy audit on High School South, and even planning a future Garden Tour, the girls have been involved in a variety of ways to help the GroWW event grow into an even larger community event.
As part of the Planning Committee for the GroWW event, Sharma was given the task, along with a student at North, of organizing the music to be provided at the fair.
She and Yu, however, have worked on getting string players from South and choral groups from the middle school level and from North. The girls also looked for garage bands, similar to a group that played last year and wrote its own environmental music.
This is how both girls got involved with the green national anthem. Naturally, the girls, both of whom play violin in South’s orchestra, decided to perform the piece. “It’s the musician in us,” says Sharma.
Leiberman wrote the lyrics and the scores for the anthem, which is available for orchestra or chorus — or both. “We’ve already gotten string players and a cappella group members” to agree to participate in performing the piece, Sharma said. In addition, the girls say that Louise Haemmerle, the choir director at Grover Middle School, to will have the choir perform the green national anthem.
Sharma and Yu say that student volunteering has already been part of the GroWW event, as students manned the recycling center during last year’s fair, but they say they wanted to step up the efforts.
At school, Sharma says she sees that the sustainable message being spread around the community has already begun to have an impact — students will tell their peers not to throw recyclables in the garbage cans during lunch, for example. “You can see the environmental message just about everywhere,” said Sharma. “Those changes we’re seeing in the younger generations are what we want to see in all children,” Sharma said.
They also hope students’ parents will be inspired by their children’s involvement. “I can’t go home and buy solar panels for my house, but my parents can,” Sharma said.
In order to really emphasize the message, however, the girls believe turning it into music will help. “I would love it if we could pause the fair and drag everyone to the stage,” during the performance of the green anthem, says Yu.
Plus, there is another reason the anthem makes sense, says Sharma. “Just about any student could talk to you about the national anthem,” she says. “We want it to be that every student can talk about being environmentally friendly.”
The girls have had a heavy involvement with GroWW from the get-go. Sharma, whose mother is also on the GroWW planning committee, began participating last year by working on the planning committee.
For Yu, her involvement began with a high school club called Community Problem Solving, which focuses on an issue affecting the local community and aims to solve it. Last year, the theme was to green up the community. In the process of her work here, she met Beth Feehan, co-founder of the West Windsor Community Farmers’ Market, who put her in touch with GroWW organizers. Yu volunteered at last year’s event, helping to collect recyclables brought in by the community.
In addition to that, she received a grant from the National Environmental Education Foundation, half of which allowed her to perform an energy audit at High School South. The other half was for an environmental internship, and Yu joined the GroWW Planning Committee.
Over the summer, she worked with organizers to plan the event as well as promote it. The biggest part involved heading over to the Farmer’s Market on Saturdays throughout the summer to promote the upcoming fair. “Even if people go every week to the Farmer’s Market, not all of them know about GroWW,” she said.
One of the ways in which the girls were able to get members of the community interested in the upcoming event was their idea to create a game called Environmental Jeopardy, based on the popular game show. They set up posters with various categories and had younger participants pick values and categories, such as recycling and waste collection.
After a while, the girls say they realized that many residents in West Windsor want to engage in more environmentally friendly lifestyles, but often do not know all of the ways in which they can do so — and one of the goals of GroWW is to educate its residents. The girls began informing residents at the farmers’ market about these practices, including which items can be recycled and local places where residents can take light bulbs, batteries, cell phones, tires and other old items for proper disposal.
Yu said she was even more surprised when residents began asking for copies of the information to keep with them at all times.
Both girls are also excited that the GroWW event has grown since its inception last year, when there more than 60 exhibitors. This year, the Planning Committee already has 75 exhibitors, and the girls say that number will probably rise by the time the fair takes place.
The girls are also involved in an offshoot of the fair that GroWW organizers are already targeting for next year — a community garden tour. Sharma and Yu say they hope to incorporate the community garden at Dutch Neck Middle School, which is maintained by teachers and students, in addition to the residential and other gardens around town. The girls also say they hope to get the West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance involved and perhaps turn it into a biking event. The girls say organizers are targeting July, 2010, for the event.
Sharma, whose mother formerly worked in the advertising industry and whose father owns an IT company, moved to West Windsor in 2004 from Pittsburgh as a result of her father’s career. In addition to her involvement with GroWW, Sharma volunteers for a blood drive held at the Plainsboro library and with Amnesty International. She also participates in the Academic Decathlon as well as the Waksman Student Scholars Program, science competition, science club, and orchestra. She is so mindful of her impact on the environment that she chooses to bike to school everyday.
Yu, whose mother is a scientist and whose father is a computer engineer, moved to Plainsboro in third grade from Texas, also as a result of her parents’ jobs. In addition to playing the violin, she also plays the piano, and she and one of her friends, who plays the viola, visit senior citizen living facilities to play music. She also takes dance lessons at Princeton Ballet School and is involved in the science league and Waksman Student Scholars program.
Yu is also the concertmistress of the South Philharmonia Orchestra and the secretary of the South Orchestra Council. She has been in the CJMEA regional and NJ allstate orchestra since seventh grade and has recently received with distinction the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music degree in music performance.
