After months of organization and planning, Sunrise Movement went to the CPS board proposing a plan to convert the district’s system to renewable energy.
“It’s called the renewable energy and electrification resolution,” Audrey Symon, ‘25, Sunrise Movement president, said. “It’s essentially a statement that the CPS school board would adopt to say, ‘Here are our goals for sustainability in the district and this is how we’re going to make them happen.’”
The meeting involved WHHS students providing evidence, personal anecdotes and even poems in order to convince the board to implement the resolution.
“My biggest argument is that somebody has to do this at some point,” Sohpie Krumm, ‘25, a Sunrise member, said. “In order for climate change to be mitigated we need to lower CO2 emissions, but in order to do that people have to take individual action.”
Despite their lack of experience, Sunrise Movement members and their arguments were taken seriously by the board and were encouraged to bring more students.
“This was my absolute first time talking [to the board],” Daasi Afanuh, ‘25, a club member, said. “At first my voice was definitely a bit shaky, but having all of my fellow students there, seeing all the support and people in the crowd who were holding up signs, gave me a lot of confidence to keep talking.”
While the main goal of the movement is to help reduce fossil fuels, each member had a personal reason for wanting to take part in the meeting.
“I’ve always been very attached to the natural world, I grew up with a really big backyard and I was always outside,” Symon said. “Growing up, I saw the negative transition that the environment was making. Two summers ago, I went to Montana to visit my dad’s family, and I couldn’t see the mountains because there was so much smoke from the wildfires.”
While waiting to hear back from the board, the club is currently working on another proposal, ways to reach Walnut and their very own newsletter.
“We have so many different things going on,” Afanuh said. “I think there’s a lot of things like this project where people would be interested, but it’s hard to get them engaged in what we’re doing. After the [board meeting] happened, a lot of people came to me and were like, ‘Oh, I didn’t even hear about this in the first place. I would have loved to go.’”