Community Benefits SOUTH BAY’S GRADES OF GREEN
Inspiring the Next Generation of Global Environmental Champions Written by Laura Roe Stevens
Grades of Green students at Magruder Middle School in Torrance understand the importance of reducing single-use waste in lunches.
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n 2006 Lisa Coppedge, a Manhattan Beach mother of two young children, quit her corporate high-tech job in search of balance. She began volunteering at Grand View Elementary School where her son was in prekindergarten. Coppedge was also taking a personal development course with Landmark Education and was asked a pivotal question: “What is your personal charter?” Inspired by the movie An Inconvenient Truth, Coppedge recalls stating: “My personal charter is the possibility of a clean and sustainable earth.” She laughs today when thinking back on that moment, as she quickly points out she had zero environmental experience. But baby steps often lead to powerful journeys, which was the case for Coppedge. After the Landmark course, she and friend Inga Middleton met with the Grand View PTA president Paki Wolfe, who asked them to chair a
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hands-on environmental education program for students. Coppedge met with other South Bay moms—Shaya Kirkpatrick, Suzanne Kretschmer and Kim Lewand Martin—who felt similarly and wanted to get involved. Kretschmer was motivated after an article in the Los Angeles Times revealed the “perilous state” of the world’s oceans. Lewand Martin was an environmental attorney, and Kirkpatrick was raised by a mom who instilled environmental stewardship. “We’d meet in a different kitchen each week to brainstorm for (school) programs and a business idea,” laughs Coppedge. “It all started rolling very quickly.” Within a couple years, these four moms had a nonprofit designation, a name (Grades of Green), a mission/vision, a website, a business plan and were operating more than 40
