Local teen collects 375 pounds of clothes as part of climate leadership program

A Black Mountain high school student has put on a clothing drive to help mitigate fast fashion effects as part of a fellowship program.

Eva Schneider, a junior at Carolina Day School, was accepted into the spring session of the Climate Leaders Fellowship, a program that is a collaboration between the Stanford University Deliberative Democracy Lab and Rustic Pathways, a student travel company.

As part of this program, Schneider put on a clothing drive at her school. At the end of the drive, Schneider told Black Mountain News she collected more than 375 pounds of clothes to be donated. These collected items were distributed between Swannanoa Valley Christian Ministry and Black Mountain Home for Children.

The Climate Leaders Fellowship is an international program that currently has students from more than 20 countries participating. The program is split into cohorts and is offered in both the fall and spring semesters. With weekly Zoom calls, Schneider said it is interesting to her to see how many of her peers have similar concerns when it comes to the environment, regardless of whether or not they live in the same place.

“It’s really cool to see how high school students are trying to make a difference in different places,” Schneider said. “A lot of the struggles were honestly very similar.”

Schneider, who will be the president of Carolina Day School’s environmental club next year, said her passion for climate issues stems from her love of being outdoors, reading and different cultures. As a soccer player and avid hiker, she described herself as “outdoorsy” and said it contributes to her wanting to protect the environment around her.

In order to participate in the Climate Leaders Fellowship program, Schneider needed to come up with a project that would help the environment in some way.

She said she sent out a survey to her school to gauge what she could do for her project and, after hearing from teachers and students, came up with a clothing drive to help combat fast fashion. Schneider said she heard from her school community that while some of them were buying fast fashion, they were looking for a way to be more responsible with it.

“Some of them shopped fast fashion, but they were trying to upcycle more and thrift,” Schneider said. “This could be a good opportunity to do a spring cleaning and give people an opportunity to be the ones that are giving back and recycling those clothes.”

The clothing drive started at the end of March and ended April 12. As of April 15 when Black Mountain News spoke with Schneider, she had already made donations to SVCM and Black Mountain Home, with plans to make a final drop soon.

Schneider said it is important to understand that clothes from online retailers like Amazon or Shein may be convenient and popular, but they do not have a very long life and can be worn only a small number of times.

“Sometimes people don’t want to go out of their way and try to recycle it because it’s just not our society right now,” Schneider said. “It isn’t geared to promote going out of your way to support the climate, and I just want to give people an opportunity to be part of that and I was happy to coordinate it.”

Schneider said she would recommend the Climate Leaders Fellowship Program because it “empowers young people” and can help shape the future.

“Maybe a clothing drive won’t solve systemic problems, but at least making the presentations and making people aware … and asking them how are you going to mindfully put that away without damaging the climate,” Schneider said. “I just think it’s important for one step at a time to just make a mindful choice because if everyone thinks like that, we’ll eventually be able to make a lot larger change.”

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