Fresh water and fresh ideas at Bristol elementary school

By Kristen Ray
Posted 12/14/18

For the longest time, Katherine Bowers couldn’t understand why her daughter, Kendra, was so uptight about the family’s plastic water bottle usage. While Kendra was religiously using her …

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Fresh water and fresh ideas at Bristol elementary school

Posted

For the longest time, Katherine Bowers couldn’t understand why her daughter, Kendra, was so uptight about the family’s plastic water bottle usage. While Kendra was religiously using her reusable bottle, Ms. Bowers was buying her plastic ones by the case, undeterred by her daughter’s scolding.

“I said, ‘I do my thing, you do your thing,’ ” Mrs. Bowers remembers.

It wasn’t until after Kendra Bowers was killed in a skiing accident in 2014 that her mother began to fully appreciate what her daughter had been advocating as the “green police” all along. Now, three years after establishing Greenlove Foundation, located in Newport, she and husband, Michael, are sharing what they’ve since learned through the organization where, as part of their mission, they’ve installed 15 water bottle filling stations in public parks, schools and even aquariums.

During a special assembly held recently at Guiteras Elementary School, members of the foundation celebrated alongside students and teachers both Greenlove’s latest water station implementation and the launch of their new educational awareness initiative.

“The ultimate goal is to educate students and create habits that are beneficial for the Earth,” Mrs. Bowers said.

To help kickstart the campaign, Guiteras Principal Cindy Sadler worked with Greenlove for several months in order to adopt a program that best suited her school’s needs. The result of those conversations made up a recent student-led assembly, where the kids’ creative approach and dedication toward being more environmentally-conscious were showcased.

They performed a skit demonstrating how to properly recycle, and developed an energizer to the words “water fountain.” Fifth-grade classes worked with art teacher Sara Jacob to create the piece, “RI’s Plastic Problem,” designed to highlight problem areas within the state and its waterways.

Fifth-grade students Andy Charest, Gareth Stafford and Ahna Rozea filmed a crowd-pleasing animated short video —featuring a talking water fountain and bottle — that illustrated how to properly use their new water station, and fifth-grader Knorch Julian even wrote a new school song that advocated for treating the Earth, school and each other with respect.

The extent to which students embraced Greenlove’s mission was inspiring to Mrs. Bowers.
“It’s been impacting, and that’s what we want,” she said.

Though only installed two weeks ago, the water filling station at Guiteras has already saved more than 350 plastic water bottles from occupying space in local landfills or getting swept away into the ocean. Collectively, all 15 stations to date have saved over 250,000 from suffering the same fate; that number could get even larger, if the state picks up Greenlove’s educational awareness program for all school systems.

Mrs. Bowers can only hope that her daughter, who at the time of her accident was studying environmental sciences at the University of Vermont, would be proud to see the strides the foundation created in her honor is making in protecting the environment.

“We know she would have made changes and made an impact,” Mrs. Bowers said. “We’ll continue her spirit and legacy.”

Her memory will be sure to live on at Guiteras Elementary School where, each morning, students in every classroom will start off their day singing along to their new school song:

“When we recycle / cans and papers / It keeps the water / air and Earth clean / Let’s work together / to help our garden grow / This school is good for you and me.”

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Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.