Halfway into the 2025-26 school year, the MFS Environmental Committee has already made a measurable impact in the MFS community through newly started educational initiatives in the Upper School.

This year’s clerks consist of three juniors and one senior: Riti Moorthy ’27, Julia Hoffman ’27, Kari Rotter ’27, and Rut Patil ’26. Additionally, Upper School mathematics teacher Larry Ottman will serve as the committee’s new environmental clerk following the departure of former Upper School science teacher Drew Newman. 

Continue reading to learn about the recent initiatives by the Environmental Committee, as well as their future plans.

SPIRIT WEEK BOTTLE SHAKERS

This Spirit Week 2025, juniors, alongside the Environmental Committee, paired recycled water bottles and plastic beads to make ‘noise makers’ as an environmentally friendly way to show support and spirit for their grade.

The idea originated from Junior Class Secretary Lorelei Short ’27, who wanted to find an environmentally friendly way to give her grade a fun noise-making tool for Spirit Week. Her partnership with the Environmental Committee Clerks resulted in a broader effort among all members of the MFS community to collect water bottles.

The Environmental Committee put a recycled water bottle donation bin in Stokes Hall and “asked everyone to go put water bottles in [it],” according to Moorthy.

“It was a great way to reuse old plastic and left bottles to celebrate and affect our immediate community,” said Rohan Dhulipalla ’27, a member of the Environmental Committee.

In terms of school spirit, Moorthy added that the bottles “encourage people to want to support each other more” as well.

While not a member of the Junior class, Zoe Dasgupta ’28, “thought that the bottles were really cool,” as she “definitely noticed them during events.”

Similarly, Alex Bienstock ’28 said, “I thought they were great. I appreciated them, and I liked the sound of them.”

Moorthy hopes to “use [the shakers] in the future,” as they were “successful this year.” 

Bienstock and Dasgupta also agree that they “would love to see them [used] in [their] grade” as well.

PAPER MAKING

Paper making was the first event hosted by the Environmental Committee this year, serving as a way to get more students engaged in the group’s work and increase attendance. 

Patil said, “We had one paper-making event, with nine attendees. It was super successful, and our paper turned out great. It was a super fun event to help us move into the school year, and additionally, it was pretty helpful to practice our paper-making skills for Lower School Environmental Day.” 

Lily Miller-Rowe ’27 said in the meeting that the group “talked about the paper and recycling industry and learn[ed] how bad it is for the environment as well as how inefficient it is” before the paper-making began. Miller-Rowe added that the group “learned about the process of making paper and made some of [their] own, using old scraps of worksheets” after the paper industry information lesson.

Going off the success from the paper-making event, Patil said that the group is “hoping to have a new and involved activity for each meeting,” similar to the structure used through the paper meeting: informing attendees first about the environmental impacts of the topic through a lesson, and then involving a hands-on experience.

VEGETARIAN POTLUCK

In late November 2025, the Environmental Committee hosted its first-ever Vegetarian Potluck for the Upper School community to spread awareness about the positive benefits of eating a more vegetarian diet and to increase membership in their group. 

Dhulipalla spoke on the goals of the potluck and the reasoning behind the event.

“This year, we lacked a lot of the same structure due to old leadership and our faculty advisor, Mr. Newman, leaving [MFS,]” said Dhulipalla. “We wanted to have the Vegetarian Potluck to show the MFS community that the Environmental Committee is a thing, it is meeting consistently, and to increase our member attendance”

Miller-Rowe attended the potluck and said that the event was “very welcoming” and had “a wide variety of food from many different backgrounds.”

“The food was great. I had two plates,” said Miller-Rowe. 

Although not a vegetarian herself, Miller-Rowe spoke about the importance of the event. 

“I think there’s a stigma about vegetarian [and] vegan foods. Lots of people assume that if food is vegetarian, it’ll be like a salad or tofu, which isn’t true. Events like these are very good for introducing people to new foods,” she said.

In addition to the potluck, the Environmental Committee Clerks assembled an informational booklet that educated participants about the positive environmental impacts of eating vegetarian dishes, continuing their hopes to provide a balance of fun and education in their events.

“We distributed pamphlets sharing facts on the many different ways [vegetarian eating] can benefit the environment,” said Patil.

NEW YEAR PLANS: LOWER SCHOOL ENVIRONMENTAL DAY

Continuing on the tradition of hosting a Lower School Environmental Day (LSED), an event created by previous Environmental Committee clerks in 2023, Patil spoke about the new ways that the committee plans to involve clubs and broader MFS community members in the event’s organization. 

“This year, we are trying to branch out to different members of our community and focus on different aspects of the environment and sustainability,” said Dhulipalla. 

“We are hoping to develop new events and things for the kids to do,” said Patil.

Additionally, Patil spoke about future events the committee plans to hold. 

“We’re looking towards a collaborat[ion] with Fashion Club for slow fashion mending lessons and the MFS Thrift Shop to bring people [and] their clothes in for a clothing exchange,” said Patil.

Dhulipalla explained the broader goals that the Environmental Committee has for the new year in terms of growing the group’s membership and events, beyond LSED.

“In the past years, [the] Environmental Committee hasn’t been as active: the main thing we did was LSED. This year, it’s still the main activity [since] it’s a longstanding tradition, but we are also trying to do a lot more things with the Middle School and Upper School. This year, a big focus is on increasing our attendance a lot. In past years, attendance was pretty low and dormant,” he said.

“We also have ideas on [creating] a newsletter so we can constantly update the community and legislators and send out public service announcements about environmental stuff,” said Dhulipalla. “We are focusing a lot on ways to include our more immediate community beyond just the Lower School.”