Announcing the Sun Foundation Making Waves Awards for 2020-2021!

Every year the Sun Foundation seeks nominations for and bestows the Making Waves Award for going above and beyond to protect clean water and the environment. Nominees may be students, teachers, schools, individuals, government, or agencies. We present to you the winners for 2020-2021. 

Congratulations to all and thank you for taking action! 

Nominations are now open for 2022 and may be submitted online. 

Astoria High School Environmental Club, Leadership

The members of the Astoria High School Environmental Club with the leadership of instructor, Catharine Reavley, have volunteered at the Clean Water Celebration for over ten years. They staff information/education booths for the event and for groups such as the Army Corps of Engineers and Dickson Mounds. Three of the years they had a booth of their own in the exhibit hall.

In the last 18 months they have eliminated foam plates and bowls from their school cafeteria, worked with the staff of the Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge to complete a new mile long hiking trail, and ran an interactive display at Fulton-Mason Eagle Days that focused on ways to prevent pollution of water supplies.

The group has established partnerships with Chautauqua, Dickson Mounds, and the Nature Conservancy. Through these partnerships the students do service projects to improve the environment they live in, learn about environmental concerns, and are exposed to possible career and volunteer opportunities for the future. This is environmental sustainability at its best.

Charter Oak Primary School, Water Celebration

Kathy Rodriguez, Jeff Marjanovich & Kyle Romine

Beginning in 2013, the Charter Oak Primary School 4th graders have annually attended the Sun Foundation Clean Water Celebration. 

With the leadership of Kathy Rodriguez, Jeff Marjanovich & Kyle Romine these students go back and create their own water celebration!  The students pick their own projects in the areas of Weather & Its Systems, Comparing Water Environments & People's Impact on Water Environments. Students work together or by themselves doing their own research & presentation preparation. 

Here's to the team of Kathy Rodriguez, Jeff Marjanovich & Kyle Romine and the 4th graders at Charter Oak Primary School for sharing the importance of water in our lives with their community.

Dunlap High School The LEAF Club, Leadership

Tim Noonen, 6th grade team leader at Dunlap Middle School and Sarah Lueschow, Dunlap High School LEAF Club sponsor

The Dunlap High School The LEAF Club (Leading an Environmentally Aware Future) became our Zero Waste station facilitators at the 2016 Clean Water Celebration. Each year since, this team, under the leadership of Dunlap Middle School 6th grade team leader and instructor, Tim Noonen, has guided our participants in managing the waste streams from their lunches and activities at the Clean Water Celebration.

The club's main objectives are to heighten community awareness of environmental issues, supply the community with information and services that can help resolve these issues, to get people interested and willing to improve our environment and to make our community a better place to live and breathe.

This dynamic team certainly lives up to their goals! They have been invaluable in helping our event reach a goal of Zero Waste.

Holli Green, Community Garden, Pekin, IL

Holli Green has had such a positive impact on the Pekin community by coordinating and implementing a beautiful community vegetable garden.   She incorporated the kids that she worked with at a program called Power Play, an after-school program that incorporates healthy eating and exercise, into growing their own garden.  Then, she decided to evolve on a larger scale, which she entitled, "Perk-up Pekin".  She welcomed volunteers from the community and went to local businesses for donations.  The carpenters union came out and built 5 raised beds located behind the 4H building in Pekin.  Additionally, Holli worked with the women's correctional facility in providing those ladies nearing release opportunities to work in the garden.  This Community Garden continues to evolve and Holli is working with others to create community gardens.

Jessica McGhee, Environmental Artist and Educator 

Jessica McGhee is an environmental artist and educator who works in paint, jewelry and marine debris.

Jessica lives here in Illinois and travels annually to the west coast where she creates and also does beach cleanups. She salvages some of this debris, sorts the items collected, and creates from them.

She has created an interactive, educational exhibit called "Playa de Plastico". Playa de Plastico is various pieces of aquatic themed art, made entirely of garbage. Most of the garbage is plastic, and much of it is collected from places that she visits around the world.

She shares her art and passion with all who will listen. Jessica worked with St. Thomas students and art director to create an ocean mural of repurposed materials. (This mural was submitted to Students Rebuild 2019 Ocean Challenge and ensured $8,584 in funds toward ocean clean up from the Bezos Family Foundation! )

Jessica walks the talk. She collects trash to protect our waterways here in Illinois as well. Often, posting online what can be found at the curb and what problems this trash may cause. Her blog online will show how she and her husband attempt to be a zero waste household.

We thank her for her dedication to educating about trash, the problems with plastics and making our community and world better for it.

St. Thomas School, Ocean Mural

Ocean Mural was created during the St. Thomas Fine Arts Day program using recycled materials including plastic bottle caps, cd’s, plastic water bottles, etc. to create a large 2-sided, 5-panel mural with one side portraying a healthy Caribbean reef and the other side portraying how pollution and plastic impact to result in an unhealthy reef and ocean life.  The mural was submitted virtually to the Students Rebuild 2019 Ocean Challenge and ensured $8,584 in funds toward ocean clean up from the Bezos Family Foundation and then traveled to the Shedd Aquarium as part of the Ocean Challenge Exhibit!  The mural was to be on display at the Peoria Civic Center for the Sun Foundation Clean Water Celebration 2020 but was unfortunately cancelled due to Covid-19. Thank you St. Thomas for making a world of difference for our ocean.

Jennifer Zuccaro-Zipp Tyre

Jennifer planned and coordinated the St. Thomas entry for the Shedd Aquarium's Student Rebuild Ocean Challenge and Artwork exhibit July 24-Aug 24, 2019. Students from all over the world created works of art to raise awareness of the ocean. St. Thomas Ocean Mural raised $8584 to combat ocean plastic pollution on the school's behalf by the Bezos Family Foundation. Jenny was the Chair of the St. Thomas Fine Arts Day with the theme of Recycling and helped plan and create the exhibit. Students used recycled materials such as bottle caps, CDs and plastic water bottles to build sea creatures and a large 2 sided, 5-panel mural with one side portraying a healthy Caribbean reef and the other side portraying how pollution and plastic impact it to result in an unhealthy reef. Thank you for your dedication to your students, their community and the ocean!