The Atherton Environmental Programs Committee is proud to present GreenSTART, our uniquely designed collaborative community competition, to our friends and neighbors. This is the first of its type program ever implemented (as far as we know)! This program is a brand new concept developed specifically to address the needs of Atherton, where we have larger-than-average size homes, the highest per capita energy and gas utilization in the county, but little in the way of commercial development or traffic. We are also proud to be home to ten lower, middle, and high schools and one college, with over 6,000 total students. We believe our residents as well as our students are aware of the environmental issues facing all communities but they may not have had previous opportunities to participate in a meaningful way. We believe that GreenSTART gives them a chance to engage personally and to collaborate together with us, in addressing environmental issues. What better way than in the context of a fun community competition!

Our Challenge: In late 2006, (then) Mayor Charles Marsala signed the Mayor's Climate Agreement and the EPC teamed up with ICLEI to address the issue of assessing the 1990 baseline for carbon dioxide levels. The EPC is targeting 2008 for this quantitative assessment to be done. Once that is done, Atherton, like all towns, will need to develop a plan to meet the challenge of reducing our carbon dioxide emissions down to the 1990 baseline level. For this plan, the EPC is also putting together a citizen's environmental task force, which group will be formed later this spring to start working on developing a set of recommendations. (If you are interested in participating on this task force, please contact the EPC at "events@athertongreen.net" so we can be sure to include you in our outreach.) GreenSTART is a wonderful way to get a jump on that challenge, which we can implement today, to get things going!

Town Projects: If any student is interested in working on an environmental project on behalf of the Town of Atherton itself, we have several projects that could use your assistance! The Tree Committee is looking for student teams to help with its tree planting plans. The EPC is looking for support for student teams to work on its emissions assessment. We would also like to have some older stuents to help one or two of our lower schools in accomplishing some projects there. (If you speak Spanish, you can use your help!) Sponsors are available from both committees to help with these projects. If interested, please contact Kathy Hughes Anderson at: kanderson@ci.atherton.ca.us.

Sponsors Available to Help Students: If any students have a project but cannot locate an available adult sponsor, we will help out and assist you to recruit a great sponsor from among our team of town staff members and committee members of volunteers. Just let us know that you need a sponsor! If you are interested in being a sponsor, we may be able to use your help. Please contact Kathy Hughes Anderson at: kanderson@ci.atherton.ca.us.

Volunteers If you have any time and would like to see how you can use your talents to help the EPC with GreenSTART, we could definitely use help in a wide variety of ways. Please click on Program Needs to see our needs on this program.