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Volunteer Service - From Me to We
Volunteer Service @ From Me to We
– a student carbon-neutrality team, KIS
May '24 – present
We turn our own climate habits into neighborhood action
— from a plastic-footprint diary to library classes for kids.
Overview
From Me to We began in May 2024 under HOBY Korea's Global Youth ESG Challenge.
The idea is in the name: fix my own habits first, then bring the neighborhood along.
We started because most Korean teens know global warming is serious (94%),
but few know what carbon neutrality actually asks of them (27%).
What We Did
•Sent 150 "Flat Stanley" carbon-neutrality letters to friends in Korea and the U.S. — 68 wrote back
•Each tracked and cut our own single-use plastic in a plastic-footprint challenge
•Made 150 EM mud balls and threw them into Tancheon Stream with local residents, after touring the Pangyo Water Reclamation Center
•Plogged Ttukseom Hangang Park, sorted 653 pieces of litter by type, and sent the park 10 fixes
•Wrote Kenny Greene's Eco-Adventures, a bilingual picture-book series (2 volumes, Kyobo eBook)
•Run carbon-neutrality classes for kids at Seongnam's small libraries
•2025: milk-carton recycling, tree planting at Nanjido Noeul Park, a zero-waste campaign, plogging at Ansan Reed Wetland
Kenny Greene's Eco-Adventures, Vol. 1 & 2
Zero-waste campaign, Nanjido (2025)
EM mud-ball campaign, Tancheon Stream (2024)
Tancheon plogging with local council members (2024)
Library carbon-neutrality class, Seongnam
Milk-carton recycling drive (2025)
Outcomes
–150 letters sent, 68 replies — two-thirds from Korea, most of the rest from North America
–150 EM mud balls; roughly 165 m² of Tancheon treated; 16 passers-by stopped to join
–653 pieces of litter over 10.1 km — cigarette butts first, then vinyl, paper, plastic
–599 milk cartons traded for 33 rolls of toilet paper; 45 trees planted, about 500 kg of CO₂ a year
–Two Kenny Greene volumes on Kyobo eBook; six more Seongnam libraries waiting for the class
What I Learned
Residents wouldn't touch our moldy mud balls until we explained the microbes
— then they joined in.
Awareness spreads face to face, not through posts.
Counting litter by type turned a clean-up into something the park could act on.
And writing for six-year-olds taught me that explaining simply is the hardest part.