Once upon a time, Tara Church was hard at work with an organization she and twelve other eight-year-old
Girl Scouts started in 1987 - TREE MUSKETEERS®. To help fight pollution in their hometown of El Segundo, California,
they planted a special tree, "Marcie the Marvelous Tree." Today,
Marcie is joined by many other trees. In addition to tree planting,
youth leaders at Tree Musketeers promote recycling programs, hold
regional and national Youth Summits and operate the Partners for the Planet (P4P) network.
Tara has received several national
awards including the President's
Volunteer Action Award
from President Clinton and
The Do Something Brick Award
featured on MTV. Here she is at
her first environmental speech in
1988, and in 1995, addressing
hundreds of youth at a national
Partners for the Planet summit.
About the same time, in 1989, nine-year-old Melissa Poe was concerned about what the future of the world might be like. Would there be trees to climb, clean air to breathe, birds to sing? Realizing that kids can make important contributions to protect nature, Melissa started an environmental club for kids called Kids For A Clean Environment, or Kids F.A.C.E.® The club she started at her elementary school in Nashville Tennessee - with just six members - now has over 300,000 members worldwide.
Melissa has received several national awards. She spoke at the
Earth Summit in Brazil and has attended special briefings with
national and world leaders. Here she is in 1990 with actor Michael
Landon, and again in 1996, representing the spirit of youth in
the Olympic Torch Relay.
Time and time again, these two young leaders have joined together to develop and
initiate programs in their commu ninities as well as communities around the world, to help improve our environment. Once again, the two have joined
forces to answer the challenge-voiced by all living Presidents at the President's Summit for America's Future - to invest in this nation's youth. Standing together near Philadelphia's Freedom Hall, Melissa and Tara were inspired to continue their
efforts to create a national program to have one million young people plant one million trees. This was accomplished successfully in November, 2000 in our nation's capital
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