According to club mentor and iMatter executive director Larry Kraft, Roots and Shoots has been working on a climate action plan for St. Louis Park, and recently met with representatives from the city and students from other schools.

“The Roots and Shoots club has done a phenomenal job on the taking action within St. Louis Park, really accomplished a tremendous amount, and so they have an interest in trying to spread that,” Kraft said.

According to Kraft, iMatter is a national organization active in 17 states and two Canadian provinces that helps youth take a stand.

“iMatter supports and serves young people who are passionate about doing something about climate change,” Kraft said.

According to Senior club member Zosha Skinner, other schools are also now working with iMatter, as Park’s Roots and Shoots club has previously.

“As of now iMatter, the youth council we are partnered with, has meetings every other week on Thursday and Sunday,” Skinner said. “They (students from other schools) can attend those training sessions if they need a little bit more guidance.”

Skinner said Roots and Shoots developed a climate action plan and presented it to the City Council last year.

“Last year we delivered a city climate report card to our City Council and from that they signed an inheritance resolution which committed to creating a climate action plan working with the youth,” Skinner said.

According to Kraft, the climate action plan sets a time for when it should be accomplished.

“The goal of (the climate action plan) is that the city stops emitting harmful greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere and then do that in a pretty aggressive timeline, by 2040,” Kraft said.

According to Skinner, Roots and Shoots met with students from other schools Jan. 28 to help them create a climate action plan.

“It’s also important to note that a group we started off in Edina just presented (Feb. 8) to their City Council,” Skinner said. “So they got their report card together, they did petitions, they got media coverage.”

According to Skinner, the Roots and Shoots club met with six other schools to make a difference in helping the environment.

“So this was kind of a big process that happened on Jan. 28. So the first thing that we did was get everybody in Roots and Shoots together and see if they had friends in other schools,” Skinner said. “Then we had them contact their friends and see if they had either an environmental group or some people at the school who are really passionate about the environment.”

Skinner said Roots and Shoots is helping other schools create climate action plans.

“We ended up contacting a bunch of kids and then we set this date to have the new kick off where we could teach them how to deliver these report cards to their city governments. We met with all of them,” Skinner said.  “We went through what we do as a group and and how we got started, our journey to get to City Council and what’s next.”

Kraft said members of Roots and Shoots met with representatives from St. Louis Park City Council Jan. 31 to see how the climate action plan was going so far.

“They were getting an update on what was going on and figuring out how they would stay engaged and have input as the plan was developed,” Kraft said.

Kraft said Roots and Shoots will have a positive effect on the surrounding communities.

“I think it will make our community a leader around the state and around the country, and also in the long run be a better place for people to live,” Kraft said.

Roots and Shoots meets in room A315 every other Tuesday.