Harker High School Students Launch Save Your Shucks Program in the South Bay
The Harker School is a non-profit school in Silicon Valley that has earned international recognition for its top academics, quality teachers, and student achievements. Three of Harker’s star students set out to improve the ecology of San Francisco Bay. Tiffany Chang, Annmaria Antony, and Sawyer Lai became interested in oyster restoration after reading about oyster shell recycling on the East Coast. They quickly realized that a recycling oyster shells program has a lot of moving parts so the students reached out to the Wild Oyster Project for a possible partnership. Linda Hunter, Founder and Director, offered to give the girls a taste of what recycling shells would be like. On a Saturday afternoon, the students met Linda at Bay Natives Nursery in Hunters Point to help out. They were tasked with moving a week's worth of shell to the roof of a shopping container using shovels, empty buckets, a Radio Flyer Red wagon and a tall ladder.
Tiffany shared, "I think we kind of underestimated how many shells there were. Just because we had been thinking, 'Oh, if it's two restaurants, it will be about two buckets.' And then we went there, and it took us about an hour and a half to shovel them all." While the experience was eye-opening, this did not discourage them. The girls proceeded to cold email every seafood restaurant in their area. If oysters were on the menu, the restaurant would be hearing from them. Two restaurants from the Boiling Crab chain agreed to take the students on by donating oyster shells. The Ray of Sunshine Farm https://www.rayofsunshinefarm.com agreed to help them build a Chicken Lounge so that chickens could clean the shell and the farm desinated a spot for the shells to be cured for a few years.
Despite their eventual success, finding resources for a project can be challenging, especially as sixteen-year-old girls. They reflected that adults often do not take them seriously. Sawyer declared, "We're gonna be the ones who have to solve all these issues when we grow up." Instead, they decided to start solving now. As young environmental activists, they understand precisely how crucial protecting our planet is. The students agreed that partnering with the Wild Oyster Project is an opportunity to make a difference. "Oysters are really effective at reducing pollution and it's really great for the wildlife and biodiversity in an important estauary like San Francisco Bay." Tiffany expressed. “Oysters can filter 50 gallons of water a day and make the water cleaner, they provide habitat for all kinds of other marine life in their role as ecosysterm engineers and oyster reefs can protect the shoreline from flooding by acting as a barrier to rising tides casued by climate change.” Looking into the future, the plan is to see the program continued by other younger students and after several years, seeing a new, community built reef happen in the South Bay. A first for the South Bay and a noble endeavor for these determined and entrepreneural students.
The students still have a long way to go. But the Wild Oyster project is confident that these young women have what it takes to make a difference.