‘Schreiber Treehugger’ELIANA THEODOROU Honored at Long Island Fund for Women & Girls Awards Breakfast

Eliana Theodorou was honored at the Long Island Fund for Women & Girls Women Achievers Against the Odds Annual Awards Breakfast. She was recognized as Young Women Achiever for Excellence in Environmental Activism.

Eliana says: "I would like to thank the Long Island Fund for Women and Girls for recognizing me as this year's young woman achiever, and, also, for recognizing environmentalism as an extremely important topic today. The environment affects virtually every aspect of our lives; we do, after all, live in it. We are affected by the consequences of a changing climate and by the effects of a limited quantity of natural resources. We, unfortunately, all too often, feel the health effects of pollution and environmental toxins, issues especially important for women. The state of the environment impacts everyone, but it is my generation, and future generations, that will truly have to bear the burden of environmental damage, if we, as a nation, and as a world, do not change our ways. However, it is also up to my generation to work and to take on the responsibility of making sure that the world does change its ways, so that we can continue to live and prosper, but in an environmentally sound and sustainable way.

I have been interested and involved with environmentalism for as long as I can remember. I joined Greenpeace at age 8, and became a vegetarian by age 9. My passion for environmentalism really grew, though, in high school. As a freshman, I joined my high school’s environmental club, lovingly referred to as the Schreiber "Treehuggers." The club really opened me up to the world of environmental activism by making me more aware of local, national, and global issues and showing me that young people can really make a difference. Working with Treehuggers and a local environmental organization, Residents for a More Beautiful Port Washington, I was able to help get a district-wide recycling program for plastics, glass and aluminum instated in our school district. Treehuggers has truly been a great way for students to get involved with environmentalism at my school. As a club, we’ve set up ink cartridge and cell phone recycling; sent petitions and letters to our politicians; held annual vegetarian dinners and trudged through muddy terrain putting up osprey platforms so these native birds can have a place to nest. I sit on the board of Treehuggers with another senior and two sophomore girls and I know that the club will be in very good hands after I graduate, especially with a new group of interested and dedicated freshmen. Seeing students participate and get involved in Treehuggers really gives me hope that my generation will be able to step up to the task of steering the world in the right direction regarding the environment.

This past summer, I worked for Grassroots Environmental Education, a non-profit organization based in my town that focuses on educating people about the links between common environmental exposures and human health. Working for Grassroots, I became much more aware about the health effects that environmental toxins can have on people, especially on women. Pesticides in our food, dangerous ingredients in the cosmetics we use, chemical cleaning products used in our homes, and even the plastics we drink out of can have extremely harmful effects on women's health and on the health of the children that we bear. This is of special interest to me because I’m also involved with the feminist club at my school. Two of my friends and I started it as an outgrowth of a weeklong event we held on feminism during Women's History Month last year. As both a feminist and an environmentalist, I appreciate how interconnected these two areas are.

I have realized that I want to pursue environmentalism in the future, though I’m not yet sure exactly how. I have the women that came before me, to thank, though, to be able to choose between going into public health, environmental law, environmental toxicology, or something I haven’t even considered yet."