Author: Emerie Martin

Hello, I am Gwendolyn, I am in the Kid Governor cabinet. I ran on the issue of climate change. Climate change (also known as global warming) is caused by CO2 (carbon dioxide) being released into the atmosphere, creating a layer that traps in heat. Some ways that CO2 is released is by using gas cars, big factories, cow fart, etc, etc. If we don’t lower our use of carbon dioxide soon, our planet will become an inhospitable place.

When I ran, I ran on the three point plan ECO, E for educate, teach people of all the things climate change can do, C for clubs that would help stop climate change through the little things, O for organizing events like fundraisers.

I go to an IB school and as part of being an IB school when you are in 5th grade you do a project to help solve a problem in the world you see. I chose climate change and with the help of a friend, I made a slide show about climate change and also made cards to hand out with 7 ways to help stop climate change (below).

7 Simple Ways To Help Stop Climate Change:

1. Don’t leave water running for too long. Turn the sink off if not using it. Also try to shorten showers.
2. Turn off lights you aren’t using. If you leave a room, check that the light is off.
3. Don’t use plastic. Try to reuse plastic bags. You can use plastic take-out containers for tupperwares.
4. Reuse scrap paper and just overall use less paper.
5. Plant a tree. Every tree counts.
6. Carpool, ride a bike, take a bus or train, or walk.
7. Educate others. Tell them of the horrors of climate change.

We then shared it with the school, giving away the cards with the 7 small ways to stop climate change.

Thank you for listening, and remember this world needs your help, so help it, even if it’s in small ways.
Gwendolyn

 

With the end of 2022, comes the end of my Oregon Kid Governor term. It’s bittersweet for so many reasons. This last year was filled with new experiences, opportunities, personal growth and so much good. I started my term with a platform and some big ideas on how I would change the future for animals. I had no idea what a big undertaking it was until I set out to accomplish my three point plan. Parts of my plan were incredibly fun and relatively easy to do, such as the animal supply drive. I had the best time leading my school in collecting items for my local humane society and encouraging other schools to do the same with a step by step instructional video I made. I also will never forget some of the time I was able to spend at the state and local Humane society and what I learned from being there. Other parts of my plan were more difficult to complete, such as getting a shelter, rescue or humane society to implement my program called Lend a P.A.W. Above that, trying to get background checks a mandatory requirement to buy or adopt an animal was literally above my “pay grade” and will take much more time beyond my term to accomplish. Changing legislation isn’t as easy as a quick rule change and I am aware of that now.

So while I didn’t fully accomplish all that I set out to do, I’m not going to let my term ending be the end of my desire to make change. Kid governor or not, I know I can make my voice heard. And that’s what I want to leave you all with….you don’t need a fancy title or position to make a change or be a voice. It takes one person doing something small to make an impact. And when others see the good you are doing and they join in, it can make a huge difference.

Thank you to every person for supporting me and my platform. For encouraging me and helping me though this experience. And it truly wouldn’t have been possible without the support of my mom and dad or my state coordinator, Nikki. Thank you to my cabinet for partnering with me while also working on accomplishing your own platforms. You should all be so proud of yourselves and the impact you have made within your communities.

Before I sign off as Oregon’s 2022 Kid Governor I’d like to congratulate Oregon’s 2023 Kid Governor, Lea Andrus! I am excited to meet you and watch your journey this next year!

Love,
Emerie 😁

At the end of August I had an incredibly busy day. It started with a tour of the Oregon Humane Society (OHS) in Portland, OR. I first met the CEO of OHS, Sharon Harmon. She gave an exceptional tour of the facility. I was shown where they house the cats and dogs, the pet cemetery and I was even able to go see the new edition they’re building on to the humane society.

I learned that OHS isn’t just a place for animals to stay until they’re adopted, its much more than that. Currently OHS offers training and behavioral help for any dog or cat owner and several community outreach programs such as classroom education and summer camps. OHS also offers high-quality and affordable veterinary care through their community veterinary hospital.

One area I thought was very cool and goes right along with my platform is the animal crime forensic center that is part of their expansion. This area will help collect and analyze evidence against animal abusers to help secure a convention against them in court. An animal abuse conviction isn’t always easy to get, so with the right tools from this lab, it’s going to make it slightly easier.

I ended the day by walking around the animals and hanging out with the Secretary of State, Shemia Fagan, at the Oregon State Fair!

Love Emerie 😀

Hello Oregon!

I’m Katy and my platform was equality. Since I had the honor of being inaugurated into the office as an Oregon kid governor cabinet member, I have done a few different things to bring awareness to my platform. I have also done things to support the kid governor’s platform regarding animals.

The first thing I did was create a game that I will be passing off to the middle school and the elementary school. It includes a true or false flashcard game to help everyone understand different forms of equality.

The other game is something like musical chairs. Everyone moves around the room and when the music stops, they have 20 seconds to find something they have in common with the person standing next to them. This brings all types of people together. It also helps the my fellow students see that we aren’t all that different from each other.

As for the kid governor’s platform, I have ran two successful lemonade and hotdogs stands in the last 2 months and I have a third one planned. I will donate all the proceeds at the end of the summer to the local animal shelter. I’m having a lot of fun and I hope I can make an impact. I’m really grateful for this opportunity and I will make sure to keep everyone updated as the year goes on.

 


Sincerely,
Katy Newton.

Kinley, your 2021-2022 cabinet member, here with a report on my CAN DO plan to reduce food waste. I am proud to report that my CAN DO plan is in place at my school, Territorial Elementary, and it has even expanded to include composting milk cartons, filling up our water bottles at a water station, recycling lunch trays, and all students (kindergarten-5th grade) are now part of the composting program in their classrooms and our cafeteria.

As a refresher, my plan is to help reduce food waste using my three point plan…my CAN DO method. I have emailed teachers and principals from our two other schools in Junction City. Unfortunately, I did not hear back from too many, but I realize that this has been a busy time for teachers and students. I’m not giving up, though! I am going to send a compost bucket to the middle school that I will be attending next year. I can put the compost bucket in the staff room so that the staff can start small. Next year when I am there, I can continue to add composting into my new school’s classrooms and cafeteria.

For the remainder of this school year and even into next year, I plan on continuing to try to help reduce food waste throughout Oregon and my schools. As I move on to middle school, I will keep trying to implement my CAN DO plan over to my new school. I am happy that I have heard that there are some teachers and community members who have started to compost at home and are calling my ice cream compost buckets, “Kinley’s CAN DO composters.”

Thank you to all of the people who are a part of Oregon’s Kid Governor program. I participated in a Kid Governor Leadership Summit on Zoom and enjoyed meeting other kids like me from Connecticut, Oregon, and New Hampshire. I have learned that if I don’t give up, I CAN accomplish a lot.
Sincerely and appreciatively,
Kinley

I recently hosted an animal supply drive at my school for Greenhill Humane Society! It was a lot of fun to prepare for it because I got to work with my classmates and make posters to put around my school. I also went to several classrooms and gave short presentations about the animal supply drive. We were all very excited about it, and after the presentations and seeing our posters, other kids were too!

During the first few days of the supply drive I walked by the collection bins and was very excited to go check them and see if there was more donations in them. Every day the amount grew by a couple toys, to a couple cans of food, to big bags of food, beds, treats, and even pet clothing. The first bin got so full, we had to add a second one! Each day brought more and more excitement!

When the drive ended, we loaded up all the donations and drove them to the humane society. Megan, who I mentioned in my last blog post, was there to meet us and asked if I wanted to help her introduce a dog for our local news channel’s Pet of the Week. Once we finished filming, we sorted through the donations and we also got to sneak over and visit the rats.

A few days later I heard from Megan and found out that we had collected 60lbs of cat food, 150lbs of dog food, three cases of canned dog food, three cases of canned cat food and numerous pet beds, toys, treats and more!

Honestly, my first supply drive was so much fun, and it was pretty successful, so I’m sure it won’t be my last.

-Emerie 😁

Hi, Its Emerie! One of the highlights of being Kid Governor was getting to go on an exclusive tour at Greenhill Humane Society in Lane County.

I met Megan, Greenhill’s education manager, and she showed me all around Greenhill and the animals inside. Megan was so helpful and nice, like the other people that work there. She’s funny too. And I like how she supports me in my cause! She also has two dogs of her own that she rescued!

Now more about Greenhill. I met an adorable and very fun, and very loving, cat named Phoenix. Phoenix is a fluffy orange cat that had been adopted and returned several times. He had been returned because he had bad skin allergies, which meant it was hard for him to be around certain things. He was so friendly and very energetic. He had a pretty big space all to himself, where he had things to climb on, a cozy bed and this huge spinning wheel that he actually ran in. It was exactly like a hamster wheel, only bigger! There were several other cats in different rooms, all waiting for their chance to be adopted.

After the cats I saw where they keep bunnies and other small animals, like guinea pigs! I got to see two, that came to Greenhill together, and will be adopted together. The Dad’s name was Soup and his baby was named Spoon.

I then got to go to the kennel area where they keep dogs. There were older dogs and puppies. Some were waiting to be adopted, others were temporarily there for what Greenhill called “crisis care boarding,” which is a program for owners who are in crisis situations like domestic violence or hospitalized.

During the tour I also learned so much about how Greenhill treats the animals in their care. While visiting the dogs, Megan told me that they don’t discipline their animals when they’re bad, instead they reward them when they are being good, with treats! She called this positive reinforcement. Megan also told me that if an animal doesn’t get adopted (or keeps getting returned, like Phoenix) that they don’t euthanize them. She said that those animals get to live out the rest of their lives there, being loved like family. That’s because when an animal is at Greenhill, they are family!

I also learned that Greenhill, like many humane societies, is a nonprofit. That means they rely heavily on donations from people just like us. I was excited to hear that because that meant I have the opportunity to help them. As part of my three point plan, I want to do an animal supply drive at my school. This is perfect because Megan said that they always need new toys and beds, and food to add to their animal food pantry (this is free for owners who don’t have enough money to buy food for their animals).

Going on this tour was so fun and I learned so much! I am glad to have met Megan and all the animals there and I can’t wait to get to work on that supply drive at my school!

Love, Emerie😊

Hi, I’m Kinley, and I am a Cabinet Member for the Oregon Kid Governor 2022.

When I heard about Kid Governor, I immediately wanted to do it. But I couldn’t decide on what my platform would be. I thought over the weekend and talked to my family about my options. I finally settled on my platform and typed up an essay on my three point plan; my CAN do method!

My school figured out who gets to represent our school by every fifth grader who wants to write an essay. So I got out my computer and pulled out a chair. I spent almost all of my day typing. My dad worked in the kitchen and helped me correct some errors. When I finished and thought of my three point plan I turned it in. I decided on the platform of reducing food waste.

Compost. Composting is where you take foods and let them decompose, instead of throwing them in the garbage. This can create soil for our gardens.

Any leftovers? Instead of throwing away your leftovers, save them for later! This is something we CAN all do.

Need. Only buy what you need. Take a list to the store and only buy the necessities.

Later we got the results of who got to do it. Me!

Soon after I met with my teacher and we made the script for my video. She had two people, Mr. Bart and Mr. Quinn, film my video. It was really fun, I even got to use a green screen. We filled out paperwork then sent it in! And that’s where the waiting began.

It felt like years before the results were in, but when they were I was excited but also sort of sad. I found out that I was an Oregon Kid Governor Cabinet Member!

Now at my school, we continue to compost and use my three step program. We have two fifth graders compost every week, they take compost buckets from the classrooms and lunchroom, then dump it in our compost bin.

This month my teacher, Ms. Kulm, and I started a contest. Anyone from my school could take a picture of them composting at home and send it to Ms.Kulm or I. We got 5 kids by the end, (Not too many participants) and we couldn’t decide who should win. So instead we gave them all a fruit and veggie basket!

I also created a slideshow showing our participants, which you can find the link to below:
Link to slideshow on Vimeo >
The title is not about composting, but we couldn’t change it (sorry).

And that is how I became a kid governor cabinet member, and what I’m doing to help! I would also like to give a big congratulations to Emerie! Great job!

Hello! My name is Emerie, and I was recently elected as Oregon’s 2022 kid governor. Let me tell you how it all started.

One morning at school my teacher mentioned a program called Oregon Kid Governor. I instantly was interested, but I didn’t know much about the program. Later that week during our normal class meeting, she finally got to share more about it. “… And for those who are interested in Kid Governor, I will give you a paper that you and your parents will need to sign. So obviously I took the paper home and so did a few friends of mine. I came back the next day with my signed paper and a good feeling.

With permission to participate we had to each think of a community issue that we could help solve with a three point plan. Three of us classmates, one that happens to be my best friend since the 1st grade, started to figure out our community issue. I had several ideas, but I didn’t know which one was the one that suited me most.

Three issues that I wanted to help with were:

1: Animal abuse
2: Law enforcement appreciation
3: Preventing wildfires

They were all great causes that needed help, but I didn’t know which one to choose! I won’t lie, this was really hard for me! I had a long evening of thinking and talking with both my parents and grandparents. I told them “I love animals and I feel like that’s my favorite, but is that more important than my other two ideas? Would people vote for me? Are enough people already fighting against animal abuse?”

I went with my gut and my heart and decided I wanted to stop animal abuse. And I was very excited about it.

My teacher gave all the candidates in my class a poster board that we could use for our campaign speech. I took mine home and started working it and my speech. I love acronyms, I thought, I could make a fun acronym for a step in my three point plan. L.O.V.E. animals? No. Y.A.Y. Animals? Doesn’t sound like stopping animals abuse. N.O. to animal abuse? Way too short and boring. Then, like a strike of lighting, it hit me. Lend a P.A.W. it’s so perfect!

“P” would stand for Participate, “A” for Acknowledge, and “W” for Welcome. Lend A P.A.W. would become humane society program to get people involved. Then I thought about earning money for humane societies or donating items to help them. And then mandatory background checks for prior animals abuse convictions or ways to stop people that have abused an animal from getting another one.

I typed up my speech and grabbed the bucket of sharpies that live up high in the art cabinet. I laid out the huge poster board and started to write. I wrote a few “Vote for Emerie!” slogans around the poster, added some cute animal doodles and wrote out my three point plan. I even got creative and sketched my name at the top of the poster in rainbow colors! Finally that night I played out a white shirt and a pretty formal jacket and some black leggings. I thought that would be a good outfit and I would look professional enough for the election the next day.

When morning finally came, I woke up and got ready for school. I had been waiting for this moment. One candidate dropped out, but I still went against two. Two of my friends that both had really great and important causes. My best friend wanted to create a way for all kids to play sports, even if they can’t afford it, and my other friend wanted to help homeless people.

I walked up to the front of the room, not feeling nervous at all. I gave my speech, showed my poster and sat back down. After the candidates finished, we voted. A little while later, my teacher called the candidates out of the classroom. She pulled us aside and said “the winner who will go on to represent our school is… Emerie!”

I instantly cried. I cried because I felt bad for my friends who worked hard and really wanted to win and I cried because I was excited about what this meant! My friends were sad, but also happy for me.

It felt like forever, but I think it was only a few weeks later, that my class checked the Kid Governor website to see who made the top seven. My name and picture was there! I was so shocked and so happy. My class watched all the other candidates videos and they voted. I hoped my classmates would vote for me, but I saw the other candidates videos and was impressed. I loved their videos and platforms and I was so excited to be on the cabinet with them (all the kids in the top seven that don’t win kid governor get to be on the cabinet together!)!

Finally the day came where I found out who won. Well, actually, I had no idea that was THE day. But that morning I looked at our class schedule. Assembly? I thought. We had one the other day…so another one so soon seemed a little strange. Shortly after that I was told to work on a speech. Actually two, one speech in case I won, and a second one in case I lost. As we got ready to head to the assembly I asked my teacher if it had to do with Kid Governor. She said “I don’t know, but bring your speeches just to be safe.”

So I did. We walked into the gym, I sat on the bleachers. There was a stage set up and some news crews there. Odd. Then I saw that my family. My parents, grandparents and little brothers. Also odd. A lady started to speak and at that point I knew the assembly was about Kid Governor but I wasn’t sure I had won yet. She said to watch a video, which was a breaking news video. I was getting more excited and then she said it. “Congratulations to our newest Kid Governor, Emerie!”

Everyone was clapping and excited for me! Shocked, my principal, led me to the stage. It is almost all a blur, but I read my victory speech and thanked everyone who had supported me and voted for me.

I later found out the Secretary of State, Shemia Fagan, was supposed to be there to make the announcement. She had gotten a flat tire though and had to miss the entire assembly. BUT! Later that afternoon, she made it to my school, and brought her adorable dog with her. It was exciting to meet both of them and I’m already looking forward to the next time I get to play with that cute dog of hers!

So, that’s how I became Oregon’s newest kid governor, from beginning to end!

Love Emerie 😀