10-year old Nirbhuy Arun and 11-year-old Alexis Nicholson from Richland share why they co-founded Kids for Urban Trees and how they won the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes.
RICHLAND, Wash.- 10-year old Nirbhuy Arun and 11-year-old Alexis Nicholson from Richland have been named winners of the 2024 Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes.
11-year-old Alexis and 10-year-old Nirbhuy, co-founders of Kids for Urban Trees.
Nirbhuy and Alexis are co-founders of Kids for Urban Trees, a club planting more than 300 trees in Eastern Washington.
Nirbhuy said Kids for Urban Trees was started to address the urban heat island effect. “Originally we were playing near play structures and we were curious to know why these play structures were super hot,” said Nirbhuy. After research, they worked to empower others to start planting more trees to support Washington State.
According to Alexis, Kids for Urban Trees focuses on planting trees at schools near playgrounds and in low-income neighborhoods to increase their community’s urban tree canopy.
Nirbhuy and Alexis are now working with the Benton-Franklin Health District to plant shade trees around school playground equipment to reduce the chances of summertime burns and heat stroke.
“The Benton Franklin Health District has given us a grant and that’s enough money for 15 trees,” said Alexis. “We’re going to a couple schools and we’re planting trees there. We’ve been to Tapteal, Marcus Whitman and Mark Twain.”
A big part of Kids for Urban Trees mission is to help develop other young environmental stewards by doing school presentations. “We have reached out to more than 700, we estimate maybe in the thousands right now for people who will be joining the events for school presentation,” said Nirbhuy.
The top 15 winners of the Barron Prize each recieve 10-thousand dollars to support service work or higher education. Both Nirbhuy and Alexis say they are putting their earnings toward their college education
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