The students also competed in the 2018 EL Conservation Cup with Hillcrest High School winning the trophy for this year's competition. In addition, the student officers of the chapters helped organize and run the May 12th EL Trash Dash 5k which involved another 160 members of the community in a 5K plogging race (where you pick up litter as you run) through the heavily littered but naturally beautiful Harry Moss DORBA Trails park. This race removed another 3,000 gallons of litter from the park.

Four times a year, the Environmental League provides a free certification course for teachers and community members who want to lead an EL chapter in their school, church or community center. Student officers are required to attend this course at least once during their tenure.

The EL is now entering its second school year (2018-2019) with three new chapters in addition to its two founding chapters.

The volunteers and staff that run the Environmental League include:

Director: Jim Lord - With more than 30 years of experience as a consultant and business owner, Jim has performed as COO and CEO of several companies and now consults as chief strategy officer for companies in multiple industries. To the EL, Jim also brings his extensive wilderness experience and expertise.

Director: Michael Gauthier - Owner/manager of multiple businesses in the Houston area of Texas, Micheal provides extensive operational leadership and marketing support for the EL.

Marketing & Graphics Design: Scott Boeckle - With over 30 years of art & graphics direction in marketing, Scott is also an expert horticulturalist and shares his extensive botanical knowledge with the students on field and camping trips. Scott is currently working on his certification with Texas Outdoor Families.

Dallas Regional Coordinator: Stephanie Jackson - After working 13 years in customer service, billing and quality assurance at ONCOR, Stephanie joined the DISD in 2016 as an assistant teacher. Stephanie brings her extensive clerical and QA experience to the EL and is in charge of grant writing, training and compliance for the Dallas county chapters. Counsel: Law Offices of Ramon Rodriquez

The various events put on by the Environmental League and its chapters during the 2017-2018 year resulted in more than 38,000 gallons of litter removed from two natural sites in Dallas. Additionally, each EL chapter raised the funds to build and support its own school garden.

In total, the various events put on by the Environmental League and its chapters during the 2017-2018 year resulted in over 2,864 volunteer hours provided by the students, EL staff and community members.

In addition to involving the students in their clean-up events and competitions, the EL also guided and arranged for its student members to participate in the EEI competitions and the EarthX conference. 

We believe very strongly in what we are doing at the Environmental League and winning the 2018 Green Source DFW Sustainable Leadership Award will help us continue to serve the urban students of our communities. We believe that the active impact we are having on our students will continue to have a compounding effect on their lives and the lives of the community members around them. In one short year, we have already witnessed behavioral changes in many of our members, with at least two of them changing their collegiate plans toward the environmental sciences. Not mentioned above, but one of our test programs this last year was in directing interested students toward college scholarships for environment studies. One of our students was awarded a full-ride scholarship as a result of that program. We will be ramping this program up a notch this year with a senior's essay program that will feed into collegiate environmental studies scholarships application programs.