Inspiring Champions for the Environment

Jeanie, a 12-year-old member of a Boys & Girls Club in upstate New York, has an important question for all of us.

“I would want to live in a healthy community, wouldn’t you?” she asks with a smile.

Jeanie is one of the more than 1,000 kids age 11 to 13 who participated in the Samsung Climate Superstars Challenge from March through April. The first contest of its kind, this two-month program was designed to motivate young people to take actions that help protect the environment and raise awareness about climate change.

We created this program with our long-standing partner, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, to align with one of Samsung’s core values: enriching people’s lives through a shared commitment to the environment. Through an online gaming platform, Club members across the world competed to unlock badges and win Samsung prizes while learning how to become responsible environmental stewards by demonstrating their knowledge of key sustainability concepts such as energy efficiency, recycling and water conservation.

“It was so cool,” said Shana, a 13-year-old Club member in New Jersey. “It was such a learning experience to go on these new adventures, but my favorite by far was when we planted a tree because I’m going to look at that tree and just see the progress of it growing.”

The contest culminated on Earth Day when the Boys & Girls Torch Club in Pequannock, New Jersey, was declared the National Champion. They stood out — from the 218 other participating clubs across nine countries — for going above and beyond what was required. In addition to visiting a historical power plant, collecting e-waste, and planting a cypress tree, they cleaned the riverbed of their local Passaic River. They also hosted a dance party for their parents to raise awareness about Earth Hour — a worldwide energy savings campaign to encourage people to turn off their lights for an hour at a designated time; held a hide-and-seek recycling competition; and put on a reused clothing fashion show.

The National Champion received a technology makeover which included Samsung ENERGY STAR®-qualified tablets, computers and TVs, at an estimated retail value of more than $20,000. Other participating clubs received prizes throughout the three stages of the contest, totaling more than an estimated $45,000 of technology.

Watching these kids use their ingenuity to become responsible environmental stewards has been a real joy. They adopted the concepts of sustainability so naturally and with so much enthusiasm that it makes me very hopeful about the ripple effect they will have in the future.