“Do your part, make a difference, save the environment”. These are words told to us by countless environmental activists and organizations constantly, and sometimes it feels like the majority of us don’t even pay attention. It’s easy to say that you want to help, and to tell someone that they need to make a change, but actually getting people activated towards even making an effort to actually make a change takes much more effort than you would think. It is difficult to explain exactly what Pro Peninsula does, I often find myself out of words when I am asked this question and expected to explain it simply. The easiest way to understand the purpose of Pro Peninsula is understanding the goal that they provide for themselves. The purpose of Pro Peninsula is to strengthen individual and community efforts to protect the natural environment throughout the Baja California Peninsula. Everything that this organization does is done in an effort to accomplish this goal. Having Sea Turtle adoptions, hosting events like environmental film festivals and other fund raisers, traveling to elementary schools throughout San Diego and the Baja Peninsula and educating the children about how they can help the environment, selling t-shirts and tracking the migration paths of the Sea Turtles are just some of the things that Pro Peninsula does in order to make their goal a reality.
At my internship, my job was originally supposed to be marketing and more behind-the-scenes action, but a big part of what Pro Peninsula does involves reaching out to the community and getting everyone involved in making a difference. In an effort to do this, Pro Peninsula has a program in which they provide elementary schools with low incomes with pen pals in Mexico, so that they can work together to make a difference. Luckily, I was given a chance to experience this side of the organization as well, as I was given the opportunity to accompany my mentor on a few field trips in which she went to the elementary schools and helped the children become activated in helping their environment. It was really empowering to see the students’ excitement about this project, showing that Pro Peninsula really was making a difference. One thing I noticed was that the children of a younger age seemed to be much more interested in the information that we were presenting. Once the students reach seventh grade, they seemed to be suddenly too cool to be interested in participating in school and appreciating the beauty of saving the environment. Francis Kinney, head of social relations for Pro Peninsula, noticed this difference as well. “I think it’s just that age, once you get to about 7th and 8th grade it’s just not cool to be interested in school at all.” She said about the attitude difference between the 7th graders and the younger students.
Saving the Sea Turtles that dwell along the San Diego and Baja California coast is the number one mission of Pro Peninsula. These beautiful creatures are becoming endangered, but many people don’t really take this into consideration, and therefore don’t do much to help the situation. Nature conservation centers such as the Chula Vista Nature save the lives of many of this animals and providing a safe home for them in a man-made habitat that suits their needs. These nature centers increase awareness of the conditions of these animals by showing them to visitors and giving a helpful tour with background information. Bringing elementary students on field trips to centers such as this is another way that Pro Peninsula makes an effort to reach out and activate the community.
One thing that the environmental organization Pro Peninsula prides itself in doing is providing opportunities to experience and see the beauty of our natural environment to those who otherwise never would have been able to. This year, Pro Peninsula is taking a group of fourth grade classes from Kimmel Elementary School on a series of whale watching trips on a boat leaving from the dock of San Diego harbor. The trips were funded completely by Pro Peninsula, who was given money from a variety of sources. On their own, these children would never have the money to participate in such a trip. The looks on their faces when we first caught glimpse of a great grey whale in the distance was priceless.
On the field trips to the many schools, there were several things that we were trying to impress upon these young minds. The first, and most obvious, was clearly to keep them engaged with saving the disappearing wildlife in our oceans and helping our environment. But I think the most important thing that we were trying to impress upon these children was the power of working together. As Frances Kinney explained to a class of wide-eyed 5th graders, the reason we had them writing to children of their age in Mexico rather than in America was not simply just for fun. It is necessary for us to work together with others who are affected by this loss of wildlife in order to really make a difference. This is an important lesson for these children to learn, because it applies to many things in life. Some of the children were native Spanish speakers, and others were not. We encouraged the two groups of children to work together to help each other out to see how much the students could get done without needing the help of their mentors, because this is something that they were capable of doing. To my surprise, the children really made an effort to work together to create their letters.
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