Chloe and Elijah Rose

Clay, W.Va.
Chloe Rose, age eight, wants recycling bins on the streets of her town, and she wants the trash pickup at the newspaper her mother works at to include paper recycling.

Those are big changes for a third-grader to tackle, but Chloe, a soon-to-be published author, plans to donate proceeds from the children’s book she co-wrote with her mother toward recycling in her town of Clay, W. Va. The book, “The Snake That Eats Cake,” tells of a serpent with a sweet tooth, a story she hopes will tell kids that, “being different is not a bad thing to be.”

Chloe feels like all kids can contribute to protecting the environment by recycling and conserving water and electricity. “I think recycling’s important because it helps clean the environment,” Chloe says. “And my birthday is on Earth Day!” She credits her parents with shaping her environmental outlook, but her big brother probably has something to do with it too.

Elijah Rose is a junior at Clay County High School, where he’s been part of the Future Farmers of America chapter for three years. Last year he won the West Virginia’s FFA State Fair Competition with a project demonstrating a farm powered by clean energy. For this year’s competition, he was inspired by his mother’s journalism job and constructed a model frog out of 75 newspapers to call attention to the ways newspapers can be recycled. Farmers can use recycled newspapers to enhance gardens and enrich compost piles, he writes.

Eventually, Elijah hopes to own a farm of his own and raise fruit and nut trees. His involvement with Future Farmers of America is one step toward a future of sustainable forestry and stewardship. “I want to continue the fight my parents have been fighting since before I was born and ensure that West Virginia is a healthy place to one day raise my own children,” he says. — By Molly Moore