Staff Bulletin - February 2008 :: San Diego Unified School District

Hoover High senior Rudy Vargas holding the Next Generation Recycler Award.

Rudy Vargas, Hoover High School senior and president of the school’s Eco-Club, recently received the Next Generation Recycler Award from the California Resource Recovery Association. He was honored for his efforts to expand on-campus recycling and increase awareness of recycling throughout his school and community.

Rudy and several other concerned students formed Hoover’s Eco-Club in an effort to clean up their school and neighborhood and increase awareness among students, staff and City Heights community members.

The club recycles paper products, beverage containers, batteries, cell phones, and ink cartridges. It conducts community and campus clean-up days and nature tours through local canyons. The club produced a public service announcement to show at the school and a video about campus conservation efforts that they submitted to MTV’s Break the Addiction contest. Their submission was voted the MTV winner for the area. As a result, each student and staff member at Hoover was presented with an Eco-Kit.

Rudy hopes his legacy is that of environmental stewardship and action. He also hopes he inspires his peers and community to make a difference.