When Owen Ruby joined Environmental Club as a junior, he knew he wanted to start his own project. He used his interest in gardening to create the native garden project with the goal of refurbishing the garden in the Oak Park and River Forest High School Mall for native wildlife. Now, as a senior, Ruby leads the native garden project and is a co-president of Environmental Club, or Enviro Club for short.

Along with his role in Enviro Club, Ruby is on the D200 Sustainability Committee with other students, staff, board members, technical experts and community members. Additionally, Ruby was named OPRF’s November Student Sustainability Champion.

It all started in Ruby’s sophomore year, when he was assigned an English paper about a problem in the world he would like to solve. Ruby wrote about climate change, which he said was “something I was passionate about, but I didn’t really ever channel it.”

The paper made Ruby more interested in climate change and led him to Enviro Club, which meets after school on Wednesdays in Room 2260. He said, “It’s a nice reset on my world because sometimes, you know, you can get caught up in stuff…realizing that people around you actually care about the same things as you do is a nice refresher.” After joining the club, Ruby noticed there wasn’t an opportunity for club members to get involved in gardening. So, he created one.

Ruby said the Native Garden team is “taking spaces that are underutilized and transforming them for native wildlife.” Over the summer, Ruby and his team of seven other students used OPRF’s preexisting planter boxes in the school garden outside of Door 10 and planted prairie plants. Now, they are working on building their own planter boxes and installing them in places to replace non-native plants. 

Cindy Wong, the Enviro Club sponsor and executive functioning interventionist, said, “It is our hope that once everything grows and is maintained, it will look like an actual prairie with flowers and lots of insect diversity and hopefully attract birds.”

OPRF senior Isaac Hoyt, who works on the Native Garden Project and has known Ruby since middle school, described Ruby by saying, “He’s a good organizer. I think he’s willing to pick up the work or the slack that everyone else [doesn’t] want to do.”

Ruby liked the leadership aspect of his project, so when applications for Enviro Club president opened he thought, “I might as well throw my hat in the ring. There’s no harm in it.” Taking a chance worked out for Ruby, as he was elected co-president of Enviro Club with senior Poppy Booth. Wong praised Ruby and said, “Owen has proven to be a valuable mentor to underclassmen as the Enviro Club co-president this year.”

Ruby described himself as “a big believer in being in touch with your community.” Through Enviro Club, Ruby has participated in stewardship days at Thatcher Woods to remove invasive buckthorn and cleaned up trash along the Des Plaines River. Ruby said, “I think that Enviro Club is a great way to touch base with local communities and also to get involved early.” He also volunteered to help run the Enviro Club thrift store and attended the West Suburban Conference Environmental Workshop in September. 

In the future, Ruby wants his job to be involved with the environment. He is considering using his interest in architecture to develop buildings that are more sustainable or his interest in philosophy to serve on boards and challenge big companies who “destroy the world for profit.” He is also thinking about combining his passion for the environment with his hobby of playing video games to see how video games can be made more sustainably.

Most importantly, Ruby wants to live a sustainable life. He said, “I want to live a life that I can look back and be like, ‘Oh, I wasn’t wasteful or anything.’”

Outside of his environmental work, Ruby is a leader in the OPRF Leadership and Launch program, plays guitar, writes and builds computers.

To do their part, Ruby advises students to compost, recycle and “Be the change that you want to see.”

Before he graduates, Ruby aims to reach his goal of installing one planter box. He also has a goal for OPRF. “I want people to care,” said Ruby. He hopes that people in the school don’t ignore environmental issues or “brush it off and be like, that’s not my problem. Because it is your problem.”