Lilliany Mendez said she remembered hearing flood warning sirens in Milford more frequently over the years, to the point it doesn’t faze her anymore.
“I just kind of block it out, I don't wake up from them anymore — if they go off in the middle of the night,” Mendez said.
Mendez, 18, doesn’t like the sirens, but it took planting a salt marsh at the Connecticut Audubon Society while she was a member of the Boys and Girls Club of Milford, to appreciate how climate change impacted her environment.
Now the club wants to get state support for a project that not only mitigates climate change, but also helps build leadership and advocacy skills to children like Mendez.
According to Milford Boys & Girls Club Executive Director Megan Altomare, the project would build what she called a living coastline.
“It's using plants and salt marsh and spartina and all of these different natural and indigenous plants to our environment, which people got rid of because they thought 'Oh, its blocking my view of the ocean.' And little did they know, it's protecting their beaches,” Altomare said.
Samantha Sontag, program director at the Milford Boys & Girls Club, said the living shoreline prevents water from washing away the shore.
“The roots of the plants keep the sediment and the sand where it's supposed to be, so it helps keep the land stable,” Sontag said.
Altomare said she’s working on getting support from the state. Federal officials such as Sen. Chris Murphy and Rep. Rosa DeLauro have previously expressed support for their efforts.
Altomare says the project would cost around $15 million.
The project would protect the coastline, but she said projects like these would also enrich the lives of children like Mendez with leadership skills. They will also learn how to advocate for causes they care about at the government level. Members of the club recently traveled to Washington D.C. to meet with federal officials.
As for Mendez, now in college, she said the experience of planting a salt marsh, which received funding from Family Dollar, a discount variety store chain, for climate mitigation projects by the club, helped foster her appreciation for the environment. She said it also helped her become more confident.
“I'm no longer afraid to talk to people about what I care about, and what I'm advocating for,” she said.
