A student-led effort to bring hands-on environmental education to local schools gained significant municipal backing this month as Albuquerque Academy’s Roots of Hope club secured a $5,000 Youth Climate Action Fund grant through Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller’s office.
Administered locally with funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the award was officially announced in October following a summer-to-fall application process. The initiative recognizes youth leadership across the region, with additional recipients including teams from the University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University, and Albuquerque High School. As part of the recognition, the Mayor’s Office invited Roots of Hope leaders Athena Hanna ’29, Sarah Hecht ’29, Claire Geballe ’29, and Cate Gentry ’29 to City Hall, where they met with Mayor Keller, learned about others’ grant projects, and received a tour of the mayor’s office.
The grant directly aligns with Mayor Keller’s broader urban sustainability priorities, which range from expanding urban green space and municipal renewable energy to advocating for city-level conservation at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP17) in Armenia.
The $5,000 Rooted in Community grant funds garden infrastructure and hands-on climate education through Spring 2027. At Taylor Middle School, which currently lacks a garden, the Academy club will construct new beds, supply seeds, and provide teaching materials to give teens the chance to improve their community with their own hands. At Hawthorne Elementary, they will transform an empty plot into a pollinator garden with a new irrigation system, so younger students can learn about the local ecosystem. And at Congregation B’nai Israel, the group will revive several long-vacant garden beds by replacing soil and plants and engaging local students to paint the beds and maintain the space.
To execute the project, the club is partnering with Michael Chase, a conservation policy and strategy specialist at the New Mexico BioPark Society, who serves as the fiscal sponsor, helping the team manage project expenditures and documentation for reimbursement.
The municipal support comes alongside earlier grassroots successes for the group, which was founded by Harrison Schiek ’26 and is now led by Athena. Club members previously raised $413.05 for TotalNM through a campus plant sale, and Harrison and Athena continue to collaborate as they work toward establishing Roots of Hope as an independent nonprofit organization.
With municipal grant funding secured and project timelines underway, Roots of Hope continues to build on its momentum and expand local environmental education. The student leaders are developing plans to accomplish their goals in time to meet the mayor’s office deadline of Earth Day on April 22, 2027.
