Let’s say to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host. As you may know your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment, consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation, contact. 844 MLG for you, that’s 844 MLG for you, or 8446544968446544968.

Welcome, folks, this is Corey Bennett. appearing for Matt Matern, Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern on KABC 790. And today, we have a very special guest with us. We have Kim Siehl, the executive director of Grades of Green. Good afternoon, Kim, how are you?

I’m wonderful. Thank you so much for having me on this awesome show.

Yeah, great. Happy to have you with us and appreciate the time. For those guests of ours who are familiar with your organization, why don’t you give us a brief overview of grants of green?

Yeah, Grades to Green. It’s an environmental, educational, nonprofit. We work with students around the world, to provide them with the resources and the tools and the mentorship to find their passion and turn it into environmental action. So we are global, which is fantastic. And we work with these students who really want to build a better environment for us and also for themselves and the future generations to come.

And so so how do you find these students around around the world? Who wants to have this back?

Yeah, it’s really interesting. It started out very organic, we started at just one school down here in Southern California. And four moms got together, and they just, this is about 12 years ago, and didn’t see that their children were learning about the environment, they weren’t getting the education. So they went to the school, they asked if they could provide these really fun projects to get the kids excited.

And from there, they implemented these programs that were saving the school money, and then the district found out so they spread to different schools. And you know, lo and behold, you know, 10 years later, we were in 27 countries and nationwide. So it was mainly organic at that particular time. Students just got so excited about doing fun projects, they didn’t even know they were learning. So they were excited to like dig in the garden or to figure out how to get their parents to stop wasting water.

So because of their excitement, it spread throughout districts. And then of course, with social media, we ended up going very virtual with our programs, because we had interest from, you know, schools and students all over the world. And so then through social media, we really elevate our students project. So other students and teachers would find out about it all over the world and say, I want to do this, too. So yeah, we were very fortunate with how excited our students are to get their message out.

So aside from a supporting these programs and these projects, from all around the world, I understand mentoring is a big part of what you do. Can you tell us a little more about that?

Yeah, one of the things that we do we call it our secret sauce of our programs is not they’re not just, you know, project based, which we’re very proud of to. But every one of our student teams or students that work with us, we have a one on one mentorship with a grade two green advisor.

So this advisor, depending on what the program is, if it’s one of our year round programs, they literally meet with them once a week, they help them develop a project, they they one of the best things we do is we introduce them to experts and whatever, whatever field they’re interested in, whether it’s water or trees or animals, and we set up those meetings, we help them meet their city council, their district. And so we guide them along these programs.

But with that in mind, we are 100% focused on having our students lead these projects. You know, our real goal is to build the next generation of environmental leaders. So we’re trying to do it by helping them learn to create their projects, implement them, and they do also have to report back on their results.

So they see this whole full full circle, they’re not just you know, hey, this is fun planting a garden, they really have to circle back to see how that garden affected, you know, the food, you know, animals and all of that. So, you know, it’s it’s quite a fascinating thing to be able to mentor students that really do want to take the lead and create their own projects.

And what age of kids is great to green working with?

Yeah, that’s the cool thing. So we work with students from kindergarten through high school. Now we have different types of projects. So for the kindergarten through fifth grade, we call them our little echo toolkits. So they’re really like bite sized projects. So a teacher can actually take one of these toolkits, they can implement it in the classroom, it stays consistent with our climate solutions, let’s say topics. So they pick a topic trees or water or waste.

And then they they pick a project underneath it, but their bite size, so they can do this project in a week, maybe, or a month, it could last a year. For the older kids, they can take these projects like, oh, I want to do a beach cleanup. And it’s, I call them projects in a box. But they could do that. But we also have these very, I don’t want to say intense, but much more developed year round projects. And the older kids really are the ones that need to do those because once again, they’re student led.

So they have to have, you know, a little bit, a little bit more experience behind them to do that. And then we do work with teachers to I do want to say that because they really are critical to this, especially with a kindergarten through fifth grade. So we do provide teacher lesson plans and manuals and mentorship for them on how to present this project.

You anticipated my next question I was, I was curious that these were independent projects where you actually have situations where some teachers are working with kids in the classroom on some of these.

Yeah, the for the the teachers can work in the classroom, we’ve also had some students that like I really want to do Grades of Green, we always have an upgrade screen advisor, of course, or mentor. But invariably, we do want them to have an adult League. So sometimes a parent or a teacher will be delayed once they’re in high school, they kind of don’t use that. But we’ve had some fourth or fifth graders take these projects on year round by themselves. And then they might have a teacher or an adult lead, you know, kind of guide them a bit.

And are there any particular achievements, say and Southern California that you can tell our listeners about?

Well, I could talk for hours. But yeah, our kids are pretty extraordinary. They They run the gamut from which is what I think is so interesting about us from, you know, getting their parents to stop eating meat on Mondays, right, so So those types of projects, they’ve gotten their schools to go trash free. They’ve gotten composting, but really what they’ve done a smug extraordinary work in advocacy. We had one student who became very interested in school cars idling in front of the schools.

And so his whole project was trying to get that to stop at his school, a State Assemblyman, we introduced him to a State Assemblyman David Hadley, who was fascinated with this, he ended up taking this and presenting a bill in the State Assembly. And Antonio, who was along the way on this got to actually see this passed, which is fascinating. Went up Sacramento, so I got to see this pass. So that was extraordinary.

We also had the students in Manhattan Beach, advocated and worked with the city they badgered them on gonna say, to get rid of plastic bags. And and really, the city council still talks about how it was really because of them that they implemented that citywide ban, the city was sued, they had to take it all the way to the state Supreme Court, the students got to follow this and watch it. We won Manhattan Beach, I live here, but they won.

And because of that, all of California quickly thereafter, the city started adopting it because of course, they weren’t afraid of being sued anymore. So we’ve had some pretty big successes, but and also small, because one of the things we just really are adamant about is that if you get these students when they’re young, to get them excited, and just adopt these habits, they grow up and they just naturally incorporate them in every piece of their life.

What is what is trash free mean? What does that?

So that was one of our first programs. We called it trash, free lunch, and we set up basically, there was an educational piece where there were assemblies, every classroom learned about this. Their parents learned about this, and we’re trying to get them to use, you know, obviously not trash, reusable bags, things like that. But most important, we set up sort of the students set up sorting stations at lunch, so after lunch, they couldn’t just take their stuff and throw it in the trash.

They weren’t they weren’t allowed to do that. So there was a sorting station, so for their liquids and it went in one place for the compostable. I It went in other places, they would take those and then use a compost on those. And then they would try to have as little trash as possible. And we would, we would, at the beginning of the year, we would do an audit and see how many trash bags they were using every day. And then at the end of the year, we did an audit, and the school, it was amazing, these people would be using like 25 bags of trash a day, at the end of the year that too.

I mean, it’s extraordinary. And then we did do a little contest where we, we asked them to support us, you know, sort of a, an overview of what they did give us their statistics. And then we awarded eco grants to some winners. And they took those ego grants, and usually most of them came up and they bought cob compost items to compost their items. So this is still going on in schools today that we started in five, six years ago.

And every kid that goes to the school, they know nothing different than after lunch, they take their trays, and they go through the sorting station, it’s really cool. And then they take that home. So it’s a great way to sort of integrate all of those learnings and take it home and out to the community and not just keep it at school.

Are we talking about public schools here, or what schools are students working on these projects in Southern California?

We work with any student who wants to. Actually, that is that is the truth. All of our all of our programs are free to students, parents and schools. So and we really do that for a number of reasons. But mostly, we don’t want to ever hinder someone that wants to help the environment because it costs money. So we work with private we work with public, we also work with after school programs if they want, it’s really, it’s really those students or teachers that want to learn and want to help.

Now, having said that, this year, we’re doing something a little different that I’m super excited about. We are working with districts to try to work with at a district level to try to implement district wide programs like trash free lunch, or organic composting, and also to work with each teacher, either with the launch, which are the toolkits or the year long campaigns. And we did that really because we did a lot of work in environmental justice.

And it came became very, very obvious that the school districts that were most environmentally disadvantaged, were being helped the least they were being supported the least these students were not getting any education. They their communities. Were very unhealthy. So we took a look at that. And we did especially in California, we did a project to try to identify the 25 most environmentally disadvantaged communities, and we’re going to those desk districts and trying to work with them.

And we just signed our first district Inglewood, which is down here in Southern California, environmentally disadvantaged as well as socially. And so we’re super excited to try to move the needle and help those students in the areas that most needed.

Okay, well, that’s a good place for a break. When we come back on, you know, deal with that matter. We are going to talk more about the roots of the organization of Corey Bennett, sitting in and talking to Kim Siehl today from Grades of Green. We’ll be right back.

Alright, welcome back to our next segment. Today’s episode of United and Heal America with Matt Matern. I’m Corey Bennett and talking with Kim Siehl, Grades of Green. And Kim, before the break, we were talking about some of the progress that’s been made, especially at the district level. Recently. I’m curious to step back for a minute and ask you, you know, how was this organization founded?

Yeah, it’s one of our my favorite stories about the organization because it really was started by four moms in a small community who who really, who had children in the school district and public school and they became quite alarmed when and I don’t know if you have kids but minor 25 But it alarmed me as well you would get these packets sent home and they’re like stuffed with all this paper which no one read it got thrown away.

They had all these electronics they they wasted all this food. You know every student got like a water bottle and every even if he didn’t drink it or or milk so they they just got together and they thought you know what we really want to help this school When we want to help our students, and the luckily the school was just wide open, yeah, come on in.

And they started working within each classroom, on some projects, and they started just fun projects, you know, like E waste, they would have, you know, the batteries be brought in, and, or something like that. And the students would have assemblies, and, you know, they would, they would just learn, but within that developed a real need to do something on a school wide basis, which I mentioned before they develop this trash free lunch program.

So the school once again, the principal was fantastic there, she was, like, Yeah, let’s do it. So they develop this model. That was, it was really incredible, because they got every student involved in every classroom, they had to take ownership. So there was a big educational piece about why they’re doing this, what we’re doing, you know, what things are trash as opposed to recyclable. And then they then they, you know, got the sorting station, they got money donated from like waste management and those types of things. And then they started having student leaders at every lunch, basically monitor this.

So the student leaders would make sure every other student followed the rules, and they went through and they, you know, sorted their trash. And then that is what quickly spread like wildfire, because there was a large cost saving that was happening. And that wasn’t why they did it. Right. But there was from from custodial, to trash bags. And so the district that the school was in, it’s like, well, we got to do this in every school, we’re saving money, right. And so it really did spread.

But after we did that, and a lot of other schools wanted us to do that, we realized it was very, very hands on very intensive, like we only had three people working for grades, or green or five, you know, we couldn’t go to all these schools. So we developed a more virtual model of this. So we didn’t go to the assemblies we trained the kids to. And through that, then we developed all of these other programs, bigger projects, with the ability and the real need to reach students all over the world and meet them with what they needed.

They might not need trash free lunch, they might need clean water, right. So we would we would work with them and develop what they needed for their school. So yeah, from starting from one school, and now we’ve worked with 680,000 students in 27 countries 47 states. So yeah, it was it was quite the growth.

And how did how did the growth start hopping over? Boundaries? How did how did you know the folks in Cameroon and Kenya, you know, your grades of Korean and say, Hey, we want to do this too.

Yeah, I, several teachers and other students really decided to put this out there. And they started using social media, and really wanted to elevate what they were doing. We also had some students that had won the EPA Presidential Award, which is extraordinary, one of them got to meet President Obama, that was really exciting. And then what a student was asked to talk in front of the UN. So because of that, it’s it was able to transcend just school districts.

So students and other states heard about US and other countries, just through the visibility of these awards, and our talks. And also, we a big part of our program is, is really elevating our students in either the press or in the city or their school in whatever way we can, so that we get the word out about their project, what they’re trying to achieve their successes. Because we’re really trying to teach them these leadership skills, and let them know that what they do, no matter what it is, can make a huge difference. It can impact hundreds of 1000s of people. So we’re trying to get that word out and show them how to do that.

And I understand there was a climate solutions campaign that was started last year. Can you can you tell us a little more about that?

Yeah, we we used to do a program on waste and then water. And what came with that was the students became they love doing those projects, but their real passion became the climate right as we all should be. Hopefully, we’re all getting there. But they really were asking for a wider range of programs like how can I help with climate change?

Right, you know, they know about the climate crisis. You know, they’re they’re scared right? But they want to take action. So we decided to implement a climate solutions campaign, they, they got to explore five topics. And that was energy trees, waste, water, and transportation. And so the the program itself is really cool because it starts out where they’re really learning about all of these things. And they’re understanding how environmental justice fits in.

And what we’re asking them to do is sort of find out what their passion is, they learn about their community, and what the community needs. And then they pick an area that they want to focus on. And depending on what that is, we help them develop a project. So if they’re really into I want to do something with trees, then we’re okay. Is it community wise? Is it globalwise? Do you want to plant trees here, and then whatever that is, we develop the project with them.

And then they implement it. So it really is. And when I say this, it’s so true, we are there to inspire and empower them, we want them to whatever that passion is, or whatever they want to do, we want them to take that and put it into action, because it’ll be so much more meaningful and more powerful, not just for themselves, but for their community. And ongoing. So that was the campaign, it was really successful. I will say we were nervous because of the pandemic are like, how are these kids going to do this? Right? Like they’re at home? How do you implement, you know, a tree planting.

So early, we worked with them. And we obviously pivoted quite hard. And we we got them to focus more on advocacy. So you maybe you can’t plant here in the United States, you can’t plant trees at your school. But you can, you know, raise money to plant get trees planted right in the Amazon or something like that. So we work with them on how to advocate, they still went hard after their cities, they still went after their districts, a lot of them wanted to get rid of plastic bottles, even though the schools weren’t in session school boards were.

So they worked really hard at that. And they also learned, because they didn’t have any other way to do it is how to engage the community, when you can’t be in front of them. So all of our all of our programs include how to use social media, how do you write a press release, I mean, really, we’re building this next generation of environmental leaders, even if they don’t know it. So we’re giving them those tools in the background. And they reached 145,000.

Community members, they engaged through their projects, and they got 930,000, press and media exposure. So they did plant a lot of trees too, because we had the team, a couple teams in Africa that that’s what they wanted to do. And they didn’t care if it was COVID or not, they were going to be planting these trees and boy, did they ever so yeah, it was really successful. I was I was in awe of them. They’re really extraordinary.

I think the pandemic has helped a lot of us learn that, you know, how to rely on Zoom and video conferencing and other ways of, you know, not just communicating with each other, but learning. I mean, without without YouTube and all these instructionals I mean, most of my kids toys without being put together.

So yeah, and for listeners who are interested in checking it out, check on Gradesof Greenorg. And you can see under the impact section, the climate solutions campaign report, you guys did a great job of kind of putting together data to tell us about, you know, not just, you know, who is a part of Grades of Green, but also the impact and how that’s measured. And I imagine all these all these metrics, do wonders when you’re when you’re pitching these to new school districts or to potential donors.

My little background in the nonprofit space, I know that people always like to know that their their money is going to be used and used well. So that’s good to see. We’re coming up on the second break here. And so I just want to transition to the to the next part of this, but what was Was there a particular challenge with with the pandemic, and your in your work that that you found particularly difficult to overcome?

Um, you know, I think that we were really fortunate in a lot of ways. I think, obviously, funding was a little different. And for us, we are completely funded by outside sources, because we do not charge for our programs. You know, but we as a team, I’ve got a small but mighty team, everyone was just so we’re going to do this we’re going to make it through.

So we just found different sources for funding. But again, our students did not I mean, they they just rose to the occasion we were that was just the most amazing surprise to us because Um, you know, who knew? And because that because of that, because we’re working with students, I think we were really fortunate because they just, they’re positive, they’re energetic, and they’re just excited. So, yeah, we made it through those. It was a little rough, but we did it. Knock on wood.

And that brings us to our next break. Cory found it so the information mattered on Unite and Heal America on 790 KABC. We’re talking with Kim Siehl of Grades of Green, we’ll be right back.

As you may know, your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation contact 844 MLG for you, that’s 844 MLG for you or 84465449688446544968.

Alright, welcome back to Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern, I stepped in on quarterback today, talking with Kim Siehl from Grades of Green, magnificent nonprofit organization working with students to create the next generation of environmental leaders around the world.

Before the break, we were chatting about some of the challenges during the pandemic, about the resiliency of youth. I understand that in the wake of the pandemic here that a new a new program has been created this year.

Yeah. You know, when, when the pandemic happened, it really did dramatically affect a lot of nonprofits. And we really dug in and we decided, you know, let’s take this time, let’s double down and let’s create this new program. We wanted to, you know, when we got out of this be able to offer this new program we call launch. And it’s, it’s the projects, it’s basically projects in a in a box. So they’re Ico toolkits. And they’re in one of our topics, which, you know, the trees, we added animals, because kids love animals, plants, energy, waste, or water.

And each one of these categories or topics underneath, it has multiple toolkits. So if you really want to learn how to, you know, look at animals, you can, you know, do something on, you know, ladybugs or you know, basically cows, how they affect the environment. So, within those topics, there’s all different types of toolkits, each toolkit, kindergarten, fifth grade, also has a teacher lesson plan, so they can implement this in the classroom, all of them contain, we work with a professor up in Davis, they contain an educational piece, they contain a project piece, a reflection piece, which is really to have the students think about not just, oh, yeah, we planted a garden. B

ut what does that mean? How does that affect your life? How does that affect the environment and people around you? And then, as always, with our programs, so important to us is an impact piece, what was measurable? How did how did what you do make a change in real numbers. And so they’re real bite size, and they’re really fun. And the kids like them, there’s videos that are fun. There’s always a piece on environmental justice in every one of our toolkits. So every student understands everyone’s different. And not all communities are the same. Not only are some communities, you know, less environmentally friendly. But some of them all of them have different needs.

So we try to tie that back into these toolkits. If for the older students who the teacher isn’t implementing, there also a whole segment that our student led, so high schooler who doesn’t want to do our whole year long program, even though we want everyone to do that. It’s, it’s, you know, it’s a lot. They can hop on and say, Oh, I really want to do a beach cleanup, or, you know, I want to do meatless Mondays.

So how do I implement this in my school? Or, you know, how can I get the city council to adopt no straws, something like that.

So we do have those available that can be student led, as well. So we’re really excited about them. The teachers are excited. We have stipends for teachers, if they actually, you know, complete the toolkits in the classroom. And we hope that they continue to teach those because, you know, throughout the year, they can do one Toolkit 235 It’s really, you know, what they want to do with their classroom and, and how do you how do you can monitor progress on all these projects.

So with all of our programs, although they are online, because we’re virtual We do speak with them. There are forms to fill out, for example, like if we ask them to do a press release, we give them a format, they have to do it. And they have to, you know, click the button to put it online for us. So we collect all of this information. The students in the climate solutions campaign, the older students, they are super motivated, not just because they want to learn, right, not just because it’s great on their high school resumes. But at the end of that program, if they’ve gone through the program, they filled out everything, they’ve given us their impacts, we have a group of environmental experts, they judge those.

So they look at every project, they see what the students did, they’ve seen the impacts the work they’ve done. And then we award eco grants, so between 250 and $1,000, depending on the project, so they’re motivated for that as well, I mean, that these Ico grants are so that they can further their project or do another project. But they’re really excited about that. And it does motivate them as well, for launch. It is also these toolkits are online, the teachers can earn stipends, the only way they earn those is was of course they complete the projects.

And they complete the final wrap up, which includes the measurable results and also their input. You know, how did the students feel? What was the reflection? You know? What can we do better? Right? So we have that as well. So we have a little bit of motivation on the back end with some grants, but we think it’s worth it. Because once they do our programs, they keep coming back, the students do this year after year.

I’m curious what kind of environmental experts do you have access to the grades of grant provides to the students?

Well, we get funding and we work closely with a lot of city and government. So the water district’s waste management, electricity, those kind of experts. So we have that core group, we work. And if we don’t have them, we find them. City government experts. So if it’s, they really want to advocate to the city, we find those, you know, city council members, so we engage those some of which are on our advisory board now, because they want to be a part of it. If it is a project, that’s about gardening, let’s say, and they want to do composting, you know, we have all kinds of experts in that arena, especially in gardening right now, it’s it’s very big in schools, that that’s what they do their composting companies or their organic soil, you know, and then we have just incredibly passionate supporters who are in film or in fashion, who they lead with the environment in mind.

So we draw on those. So students can really learn that, you know, you don’t have to be an engineer, you don’t have to be a gardener or a scientist, you can be a filmmaker, and you can still lead with the environment in mind and make a difference.

And so because we have those experts to draw on, I think we have a really wide range of people who not only helped the students, but also when they look at these projects. It always amazes me like, Who’s Who are they going to pick? Who are they going to pick, and they see them from such a different angle. It’s really fun.

I think that’s great. I was growing up. And I think it’s important to to show kids, not just the possible, the possibilities that are out there for their own work, but also to teach them that it’s okay to rely on others for help.

You don’t have to be an expert in something to be able to do it. Certainly in my profession, I have to rely on people who are a lot smarter than me and 1000 different ways. And that’s just the way it works. I think that’s it’s fantastic. If any of our listeners are, are skilled, if they’re if they’re experts in something, is there a way that they can get involved or contribute?

Yeah, we would absolutely love that. We are always reaching out to partners. It’s one of our favorite things, especially with these toolkits. We’re trying to get a kind of a partner for our toolkit. So yeah, are on our website. It’s really easy to navigate, you can contact us through that. You can also look at the toolkits, we have our programs right there. Like I said, we’re wide open, or free.

So you can take a look at those. And you know, you can get involved being an expert to talk to students you can get in it being an expert to talk to us, like we are not the expert in everything. So we work with teachers, like how do we build the best curriculum that’s most exciting. Like, if you’re a teacher and you want to get involved?

Oh, man, we are thrilled, like, that’s so helpful. You know, and obviously, if you’re in the position to donate or to be a funder, that’s fantastic too. So we have many ways for you to get involved and work with either the organization or even our students which you know, some people love to do. So it’s that that’s a really fun part.

That’s great. That’s a great way to send us into our final segment here. When we come back from the break, we’ll chat about all these ways that we can support Grades of Green, including an upcoming fundraising events. And then we’ll wrap up our conversation of Cory Bennett here sitting in for Matt Matern, Unite and Heal America 790 KABC.

As you may know, your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment, consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation, contact 844 MLG for you, that’s 844 MLG for you, or 84465449688446544968.

All right, it’s the final stretch here on this week’s episode of Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern. And I’m having a fantastic conversation with Kim Siehl of Grades of Green. Before the break, we were chatting about some of the recent things Grades of Green has been doing including the launch program kits that you guys started during the pandemic. And in the break, you mentioned that you’re also working on on a Leadership Academy. Can you can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, we, we, a few years back, actually, before I was here, they had a Youth Corps, which was a select group of students, and they all worked on a project together, which was really fun. It was very hyper local, small group. And we rolled a lot of that leadership training into our climate solutions campaign.

But really, what it came back to is our students who go through our programs, usually they start out in an elementary school, and they kind of rise up, they learn habit change, then advocacy. And then there’s this group of students that really want to dive deep into leadership. So we’re developing a leadership program in which we partner with corporations in all different industries.

So the students will work with us, they will do a project together, but they will, you know, really work and mentor with each of these different organizations that we’re working with, to learn how they can lead with the environment in mind, no matter what they’re doing, whatever the field is, we’re hoping to, you know, that some of these students will get internships potentially scholarships.

But but our but our goal on this leadership is that by the time they become the next president, United States, or a state senator, or running, you know, CBS, all of the decisions that they make, they will keep the environment in mind when they’re making that if we all did that, we would probably not be having this conversation, right? Because we won’t be learning that.

But if you just think about that, if you just think that if all of our decisions we make we just take the environment and Mother Earth into that in our thought process, the world would be a very different place. So by the time they leave, that’s what we’re going to be.

I’d argue that if we had done that we’d still be having this conversation, because it would be built into our routine. It would be part of our process.

Excellent. I love that. Okay, well, so how how can folks support this? We know that nonprofits shot boiler nonprofits need money? I understand there’s a fundraiser coming up.

Yes. So Well, this was funny because you said what was what was a problem during the pandemic for us? I should have I should have I kind of buried the lead on this. But every year we’ve had a really fun, you know, get together Gala, it’s called ver to its, we showcase her students, which is fun, they’re there, they talk to the guests. And then of course, we have dinner and dancing and the live auction.

Well, it brings about a third of our revenue in. So during the pandemic, we couldn’t not have that. So it used to be an April, so couldn’t have it for the last two April’s but once again, we’re scrappy. We made it through. But we we are definitely having it October 9. And everyone is so excited. And we decided to to focus on this gala on celebrating Mother Earth, and really the mothers that inspire their children to care for the earth.

And the reason that other than the fact that our founders were moms, which is so cool. The reason why is when we talk to our students, we’re always asking them like, why why are you doing this or how did you get into or what inspired you?

And invariably it comes around to their mother or their parent or a teacher but a lot of times their mother, so we wanted to really elevate them Not only celebrating Mother Earth because she is so special, but also the mothers that have inspired children and also the founders who founded our organization.

So it’s October nights. Tickets are available. You can go to our website. There’s a fantastic cocktail hour you get to meet the student leaders. We have dinner, sit down dinner awards, we celebrate both students, students and some of our teachers fun after party. I will say we have a fantastic band this year. And we’re honoring which I’m so just so excited for two wonderful people, which is Kathy Kela Johnson. She is the chair of the board of Kellogg garden products. Her grandfather started this company. It was really one of the first soil companies that focused on organics.

She is now running out which we think is so awesome. Her. We have her kids speaking and she actually donated a bunch of soil to our school in Inglewood. We were just there partnering with her, her organization and the school. She’s just she’s extraordinary. She does a lot of global work. So we’re super excited about her. And James Hartsburg, who is he’s now the CEO of La car guy, which has been one of our longest and most giving supporters.

He is he’s an environmentalist at heart he is he used to run Subaru Pacific. He chose us great to green as the Subaru share the love, hometown, hometown, and each time someone buys a car in November, December, they can choose us and they double the amount that they donate. So we’ve been that he’s just a great guy and La car guy itself with their dealerships have been big supporters. And they have a real environmental bent to them because they’re founder and owner.

He’s a total beach guy, total surfer. So we’re proud to honor James Hertzberg as well. Yeah, and we have a little surprise video from Senator Ben Allen. He was he was supposed to come and he couldn’t get the last minute he was gonna come next year. He promises so he’ll he has some really cool words for our students.

How about Senator, get over there who, you know, gallows for two years? Come on.

We love him so much. And he’s just so great. So we’ll get we’ll get them next year.

Fantastic. Well, that sounds like a great evening. For those wondering that spelled v-e-r-d-e. If you want to tickets to this, it’s October 9 at 5:30pm. At Audi Pacific, and Torrance, you can go to [email protected]/verde2021. For tickets, you can also call 310-619-6206 are interested in sponsoring.

And yeah, for those of us with the interest in the means to support great nonprofits that are making our communities and the world a better place, it’s a great opportunity to get out meet other like minded people and really support the organizations that helped us get through this pandemic.

That’s so great. Thanks. And just one more thing for if you’re not able to come, I will say that we have about 303 to 350 people, the group of people that attend this are from Southern California. So and they’re they’re wonderful people, of course, they have very environmental stance, you know, they they are of the stature that are able to support us and to attend this.

So we do have opportunities for businesses to be a business leader. There are tickets available, or you can donate your tickets to educators, which is kind of makes you feel good. But but we will highlight your business or individual if you choose to do this.

But you know, it’s a great group of people that you depending on your business, you probably want to get your name in front of so that we have those opportunities as well. And if your company has a matching donation policy, Oh, yes. Take advantage of that. Excellent. Right. Yes,

I need to put you on our board.

Make it slow. Let’s take it slow. Last question. Are the four moms still involved in the original four?

Yes, actually, they are they come to every bear. To them still sit on the board. They take turns going on and off because there’s some limitations. They’re both very, very active and we love them to death. We have a little surprise for them at this fair.

I can’t really tell you because they might be listening to this but yeah, we I I lean on them daily. So yeah, sounds great to hear and all of your kids are now let’s think. I think they’re almost all in college now. Yeah, but they all grew up with pretty amazing well I’m so fantastic.

Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It was a really interesting conversation I for one was not terribly familiar with your organization. Before today, actually before last week, and now I am. And I think I want to be more involved.

Hopefully, you’ve inspired some of our listeners to do the same. Like I said, you can learn more about Grades of Green by going to creativegreen.org. You can find ways to impact your community, you can sign up for the launch project kits, you could donate your time or money there. Or you could buy a ticket to Verde 2021 on on October 9. Kim Siehl. Where else should folks find you?

Well, you can call me that’s my actual cell number, by the way, and I’m happy to have people call I love I love talking about my students and the organization. Definitely go online. You know, if you if you want to, I think we can maybe say this meet and for coffee and learn more about us. We would love to do that. We have a small office in El Segundo.

But you know, we would love to get out and meet you and, and even our students, you know, just we always say when students talk adults, Listen, I gotta tell you, it’s so true. So anyone that’s interested in even talking to our students, we’d love to have you meet them as well.

Oh, fantastic. And you can get in touch with us here at Unite and Heal on Twitter or visit our website, uniteandhealamericawithmattmatern.com. I’m Corey Bennett sitting in for Matt today. I mean, Unite and Heal America on 790 KABC, Kim Siehl thanks so much. Have a great day everyone.

As you may know your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation contact 844 MLG for you, that’s 844 MLG for you or 84465449688446544968.