Dream in Green’s mission is to empower individuals, especially youth, to lead in the response to climate change and other environmental challenges facing South Florida. We do this by assisting diverse organizations, including schools, households, local governments and businesses to reduce their environmental footprint. By establishing partnerships in our community, we develop, implement and oversee educational programs and workshops that promote environmentally sustainable behaviors among all age groups, with a particular emphasis on K-12 students. Founded in 2006 to address the unique environmental challenges that threaten the future viability of our community, the organization has grown from working with 3 schools to now serving over 100 schools yearly and partnering with various communities to implement outreach activities throughout Miami-Dade and Broward Counties .
Problem: Florida communities are environmentally illiterate to the local critical environmental challenges they are facing and are therefore not engaged in environmental stewardship.
Strategies: Increase environmental knowledge in order to inspire and facilitate action through educational outreach.
To date, our programs have served over 330 unique schools and 100,000 individuals, roughly 84,000 of which were preK-12 students. The Green Schools Challenge has saved Miami- Dade County Public Schools approximately $3.1 million in energy costs while conserving 32.4 million kilowatt hours of electricity through simple, no-cost, behavior changes like turning off lights, computers, and unplugging electronics. These student-led initiatives helped reduce or offset approximately 49.5 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions – which is the same as taking 3,210 homes off the electricity grid for an entire year. Additionally, our programs provide resources, professional development opportunities, school grants, and outreach activities to local communities. Since its inception in 2012, the WE-LAB program has conducted over 95 workshops in Miami-Dade educating residents on the effects water, energy and waste consumption have on our resources.
