It’s no secret Lake is home to a wide variety of clubs and organizations, all looking to make an impact in the lives of student and in the community around them. One of the most notable of these is the Lake Earth Club, the districts first student-led recycling club.

The Lake Earth Club, which meets every Thursday after school, is available for anyone to join as long as they meet grade requirements.

Each meeting has stayed largely consistent for the members of the club. With its procedures perfected, the club takes less than an hour to collect recycling from the entire school.

“Each meeting we go around and collect the paper and cardboard recycling from classes that have opted to carry our recycling boxes,” Earth Club Treasurer Emily Dong said. “Without the club, tons of paper would just be funneled into the trash instead of recycled.”

The recycling boxes, which reside in many of Lake’s classrooms, are small cardboard boxes hand decorated by members, which are tagged with a variety of slogans and pictures of the Earth with the label “Earth Club” boldly written across its width.

“Earth Club’s purpose to aid the teacher’s with disposing of their recycling, both effectively and appropriately, which is a both helpful and necessary service we can provide to the Lake community,” Historian Michael Yo said. “By the end of the meeting we have collected the entire schools recycling and get it prepared to ship out to a recycling facility.”

“A little adds up to a lot, just taking a couple papers out of each class allows use to make an impact,” Vice President Emmy Li said.

Due to the COVID pandemic, Earth Club had to remove its plastic and large material recycling from their services. This was a setback that they didn’t let hold them back to continuing to expand through collaboration and community service.

“We got an overwhelming 60 new people join due to fish camp alone,” Michael Yo said. “We are hoping to collaborate with the newly formed Gardening Club to expand our impact as well as creating more opportunities for our members to complete projects both inside and outside of school.”

Earth Club began six years ago and continues to grow.

“This year it has been really refreshing to see new faces,” Li said. “We have created an outlet for people to engage in the school’s community… which has allowed students to create a positive impact on the school. Building community and continuing tradition as well as passing it forward has been rewarding.”

The club, which held the title of the only student-led recycling organization in the district, has inspired other CCISD high schools to begin their own chapters of Earth Club.

“Earth Club is a worthwhile cause,” Dong said.  “We hope people become more conscious of recycling knowing that there are people that care.”