This past Tuesday marked the opening meeting of CSI’s newest club, the TREEAge Club. Students who were interested gathered and were able to learn more about the club and its values, as well as assigning new roles within the club as it lays its course for the future.

Yasmin Zayed helped share the core message of the club, stating that the club’s message and goal was to empower students at the College of Staten Island to get involved in climate justice. TREEAge is a youth-led nonprofit organization, and the club isn’t just available at our campus, but in other colleges and high schools as well.

At this meeting, students were able to learn about initiatives like the “Green Healthy Schools” and “Decarbonizing CUNY” campaigns. At this meeting, a high schooler from CSI High School of International Studies, Gabby, spoke more about the “Green Healthy Schools Bootcamp.”

On October 3, from 11am-6pm at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, more than 300 students will gather to urge Mayor Mamdani to meet their requests to renovate 500 New York City schools, build green schoolyards with eco-friendly space, and transform 50 schools into resilience hubs. These initiatives are estimated to create 15,000 union jobs, paid for with reappropriated funds and new fundraising initiatives.

Yasmin, the TREEAge Club President, also spoke about opportunities the club will seek to provide students, such as getting potential internships within the Mayor’s Office and other official legislative offices in Staten Island and neighboring boroughs. There will also be club fellowships available for all members in social media work as the club progresses.

Future events that TREEAge can get involved with in Manhattan will also be made available to students, where they will get to partake in free merchandise and food.

The club concluded its first meeting with finalizing roles such as Treasurer and Social Media Manager that were also all democratically elected by fellow club members. Afterwards there were free matcha cupcakes for all members to enjoy.

By: Rachel Rodrigues