In 2008, when I was a mere 5th grade student, I came across the increasingly devastating issue of climate change. I found out that the main cause of this global problem was human consumption of fossil fuels. Wewere burning so much coal and oil that our world was, and is, literally heating up. Of course, as a young girl in this big world, I was absolutely horrified. After further research, I discovered that the consequences of climate change were huge – melting ice caps resulting in rising sea levels, countless species such as polar bears forced into extinction. But what did this mean for me? I live in a small coastal town in RI called Westerly, five minutes away from the ocean. If global warming was allowed to continue at its current rate, parts of my own town and many other regions could be eventually submerged underwater! Well, that decided it. I promised myself that I would do everything in my power to try and stop this rising problem.
What could we, eight ten-year-olds, do to help solve this issue? We already knew that global warming could be slowed down by replacing fossil fuels with alternative energies, such as biodiesel. Following this, we visited the Energy Solutions Expo at the University of RI, where we found that biodiesel could be produced from waste cooking oil. But what finally brought us to a revelation was an article in the local paper. The article was about a local charity in our area called the WARM (Westerly Area Rest and Meals) Center, which had initiated a campaign titled “One Dollar Makes A Difference”, in which residents donated $1 each week to go towards emergency heating assistance. We were astonished by this realization – people in our own community were struggling to heat their homes in our harsh New England winters. Surely, we thought, we could help these needy families. And then, a solution came to us. This solution became Project TGIF – Turn Grease Into Fuel.
Project TGIF is an innovative system that collects grease, converts it into biodiesel, and then distributes the fuel to local families for emergency heating assistance.
Kid 4 Love Project can be heard weekly on Dreamvisions 7 Radio network.
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