Youth Venture

Sea Turtle Conservation Program

Turtle Talks is an environmental road show. That was created in 2001 and has sustained for seven years. The traveling classroom has been presented to thousands of students and adults. Turtle Talks is an educational seminar that was designed to enlighten young people to the plight that turtles and sea life face in the marine world. The mission focuses on public awareness for youth and adults, empowering them to become stewards through knowledge of our natural resources.
That school year the Turtle Talks team was founded to get the message out to young students in the community. In 2004, Zander a team member wrote an activity book as a handout to accompany the presentations. Now in its sixth printing there are one hundred thousand copies of the booklet in print, and given away free. A high school Spanish club translated the book into Spanish and a student in France penned it into French. This year an environmental group asked him to write a similar book on the threatened gopher tortoise. The tortoise roams in the five Southeastern states. There are now ten thousand books in print.
In the summer 0f 2006, we organized a group of teens to participate with in the Adopt-A-Shore program. We frequent a stretch of the Intercoastal waterway off of Englewood, Florida. After contacting Keep Charlotte Beautiful, Inc. we were able to adopt a section of a channel where we go wakeboarding. Our team has pulled out tires, floating trash, and derelict crab traps.
Internationally, team members have traveled to visit emerging Caribbean countries. They have spoken with children in an attempt to make them preservationists of their natural resources. Through this effort the team has established a sister school program with students in Florida and students in the Bahamas, Trinidad, Panama, Mexico and Costa Rica. Books are being sent to children in twenty countries around the world.