A special shout out to Southern California’s Youth Rep Mahuya Barua for coming in third place in Global Green USA’s Citizen Entrepreneur competition! This post is taken from Global Green USA‘s Citizen Entrepreneur winner’s announcement. 

When we launched our Citizen Entrepreneur Contest to identify local green heroes, we hoped to elicit nominations of individuals who are true local green heroes, each taking responsibility for a corner of their world. We got an incredible response of more than 130 nominations, so choosing the winner proved to be a challenge, made only more difficult by the outpouring of public support during the voting phase. I am pleased to announce that Cassie Parsons, a farmer and chef/restauranteur from Charlotte, North Carolina, took our top prize to help support a community garden project in a low-income community. We also received additional funding to award a 2nd, 3rd place, and five runners-up. This all reinforces the call for not only leadership in the halls of government and corporate board rooms, but for local green heroes who embody the spirit of Citizen Entrepreneurs. Watch out for future announcements in our ongoing search to celebrate and support citizen entrepreneurs.

Our Citizen Entrepreneur Winners

1st Place:
Cassie Parsons Charlotte, NC
The farmer and chef/owner of farm-to-table restaurant Harvest Moon Grille is working with members of a low-income community on a start-up urban farm to provide healthy produce and economic opportunities. The Seigle Farm community garden is a project Cassie founded with the Seigle Avenue Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, in what is considered the top food desert area of Charlotte. The first steps include the purchase materials, seeds, plants, and tools for the garden, which will support the community with produce and employment.

2nd Place:
Pierre Beauchamp Auburn, CA
Pierre is a high school aquaponic farmer who provides fresh and healthy food for his school’s cafeteria, has also educated classmates on the process, and is working to develop a program for his classmates on campus.

3rd Place:
Mahuya Barua Los Angeles, CA
Mahuya is high school student and Alliance for Climate Education Youth Representative who embarked on a plan to green her campus, starting with a more efficient recycling program and currently focussing on wasteful styrofoam trays in the cafeteria.

Runners-Up:
Macon Fry, New Orleans, LA
Macon is a mentor farmer at the Hollygrove Market and Farm and the Grow Dat Youth Farm, where he helps provide urban agriculture training and jobs for students and is adding a vermicomposting (worm compost) system to replace conventional bins on the farm.

Hynden Walch, Glassell Park, CA
Hynden runs Hillside Produce Cooperative, a cash-free neighborhood exchange for neighbors to share their bounty of organic fruits, vegetables, flowers, and herbs.

Robyn Halasz, Boynton Beach, FL
Robyn started SeaAngels for volunteer beach cleanups, where they use reusable buckets and sort and recycle the collected waste.

Akansha Jain, Omaha, NE
Askansha is a high school student who took on project to clean the Elkhorn River of toxins from fertilizers and is working on an educational film about the work.

Michale Bauch, Long Beach, CA
Michale filmed a short documentary, “Riding Bikes with the Dutch,” and is working to make biking easier and safer in Long Beach.

From all of us here at ACE, congratulations to all of the Citizen Entrepreneur winners and runner ups.