The Portsmouth High School Environmental Change Organization (ECO Club) is hosting the Seacoast Spring Market at PHS from 10 am-2 pm on May 21, 2022, outside in the parking lots.

The Seacoast Spring Market brings local students, artisans, and businesses together to sell their products to the public. The goal of this event is to encourage more people to support local businesses and artisans instead of larger corporations with larger carbon footprints (the amount of carbon emission a certain group or person emits into the environment).

The ECO Club will have its own table at the market. They will sell plants that they have grown in the greenhouse and will also be having a raffle. They will be raffling off many different sustainable products.

The PHS ECO Club focuses on making the school and city of Portsmouth more sustainable. Kimberley McGlinchey, the advisor of ECO Club, says, “The mission of ECO Club is to create a more sustainable school and community through education and outreach.”

The ECO Club puts on many events throughout the year, including sustainable movie showings, composting challenges, and bake sales. 

One of the favorite events of the ECO Club in the past was the craft fair in December. Unfortunately, because of COVID, the ECO Club was no longer allowed to host this event. The Seacoast Spring Market will be in the place of the Craft Fair this year.

Throughout the 15 years ECO Club has been around, all of these events have raised money for many different things. ECO Club has raised money for solar panels for our school, and plants to grow in our greenhouse, and currently,  the ECO Club is raising money to continue hosting fundraisers to inform the public and possibly to get a new greenhouse for the high school. 

ECO Club started when a small group of students brought their concerns forward about climate change and the lack of sustainability in the school. They asked Emily Stearns and Deidre LaPointe to be their advisors and the club has grown ever since. McGlinchey became a part of the club when she started working here and then eventually became an advisor. 

With so many students involved in the club, each grade level has 1-2 leaders, and the club is split into many different subcommittees that focus on different projects. Right now there is a group focusing on the Seacoast Spring Market event, Plastics, Climate Change, Gardening, and Finance.

Anyone is welcome to join ECO Club and participate in any way they can. ECO Club is able to make PHS and the community more sustainable which makes the city strive to be more sustainable. 

If you are interested in joining the ECO Club you can email [email protected] or go to room 319 on Wednesdays during lunch.