Students get schooled in grass-roots activism, Sierra Club style

L.A. students Tajairi (TJ) Neuson (second from left), Makaila Conley, Conservation Program Manager
Angelica Gonzalez and SPROG trainers at Harwood Lodge.

How do you train the environmental leaders of the future? Sierra Club's SPROG program (short for "summer program") provides one answer. Every year it organizes grass-roots training for young people between the ages of 14 and 28. On the West Coast, SPROG 2016's intense weeklong program took place last month at the Angeles Chapter's Harwood Lodge. The Chapter sponsored two students: Tajairi (TJ) Neuson of Los Angeles and Makaila Conle of Downey. Both attend Da Vinci Communications High School.

Here are some of TJ's thoughts after his week with Sierra Club team members.

West Sprog 2016 introduced me to a new world. 

--A new world where the youth fight valiantly against massive corporations and corrupt politicians who are destroying the place we call home. 

--A new world where youth are not complacent or blind to issues that affect not only them but people and species they have never personally interacted with before. 

--A new world where everyone treats each other with respect.

SPROG is where I learned the difference between being a revolutionary and a reformer. SPROG is where I was not afraid to share my opinion, thoughts, and experiences because everyone was very open-minded and receptive to each other's message.

SPROG is where I will one day send my children so they too will experience, a phenomenal once-in-a-lifetime program.

Thank you to the Sierra Club for sponsoring me and Makaila's SPROG experience. I also would like to personally thank all the trainers of West Sprog and participants and anyone involved in the making of the program for making the Summer of 2016, the greatest summer of my entire life.

I never knew that it only took a week to bond with a group of people  from wildly different backgrounds and feel as if they were family. 

We invite youth to join the Sierra Student Coalition online. The coalition sponsors SPROG training annually.