One student at McDougle Elementary School spearheaded a new initiative to stop the use of plastic silverware in the cafeteria.
In October 2019, Dagan Foreman, a fifth-grader, decided to email his principal and ask if he could pay for some metal silverware for the cafeteria. He did his own research and even made a cost analysis spreadsheet that compared the costs of buying plastic versus silverware, his fifth-grade teacher Courtney Hines said.
Foreman said he started thinking about this project during summer and he did research during that time.
“Me and my brother, we had just heard about Greta Thunberg and we were thinking of a way to help out the environment,” Foreman said. “The first thing that we thought about was metal silverware.”
This year, Hines and his other fifth-grade teacher, Katie Nicholson Maher, are using posters from a campaign called "We The Future" put together by Amplifier, an organization that promotes grassroots movements. The campaign consists of 10 posters of young leaders representing diverse movements that are already building a better world, according to Amplifier's website.
“The one in particular that was about the environment was Xiuhtezcatl Martinez,” Hines said. “When we did that circle in class, you could tell that Dagan was just amped up and excited.”
After Foreman sent his email, McDougle Elementary school principal Aisha Howard communicated with him back and forth about the details of the project, and eventually, she set up meetings with cafeteria manager Joe Palladino and assistant cafeteria manager Antonio Campbell.
“Normally it’s an adult that asks us to do something, so when this little kid asked to see us, it was pretty neat,” Palladino said. “It was cool for a child that young to present that to us, so, you know, we told him that if he had any more great ideas to come talk to us.”
The project was then presented to Liz Cartano, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools director of dining .
