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Dec 3, 2008 7:08 pm US/Eastern
Teen Entrepreneur Teaching Kids To Go Green
A 12-year-old entrepreneur flew more than 1,000 miles to start a special club in Harlem Wednesday.
She's on a mission to clean up the world one child at a time.
"Turn the lights, TV, and computer off when you leave the room," Riley Hoffer suggests.
Hoffer's teaching kids at Alain Locke Elementary in Harlem how to go green, making the trek all the way from Arkansas.
"We have a landfill not too far from our house, and we drive by it a lot," Hoffer said. "I see all the water bottles sitting there and I thought we really needed to do something about it."
So Hoffer designed a stainless steel, reusable water bottle and started the environmental company CynerGreen Kidz.
On Wednesday, she taught 4th graders how to make Christmas ornaments out of recyclable paper, and helped them start an environmental club with green tips that hit home.
"[Riley told us to] get out of the shower a little earlier," 10-year-old Darmani Wilcher said. "Don't keep the refrigerator open that long. Recycle, reduce, and reuse."
It really hit home when Hoffer told the kids that it takes 700 years for a plastic bottle to decompose in a landfill.
""The garbage is going to fill up our earth, and it's going to be dirty," 10-year-old Chyanne Bell said. "We don't want our earth to be dirty. It's up to us to save it."
While kids are often told of the importance of recycling and being kind to the environment, the message can be even stronger coming from a 12-year-old peer.
"It was very great, because we heard from a child our age, what she's doing to keep the world clean and make it a better place," Bell said.
Next, Hoffer heads to Oregon and Wyoming to start similar environmental clubs, and her hope is to have on in every state in the next few years.
All online proceeds from the sale of Hoffer's water bottles go to educational programs for middle and high schools across the country.
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