As Environmental Club Adviser Margaret Brumstead goes through her last year of teaching at DHS after 31 years, she is attempting to raise funds to install a water bottle refill station. Her mission is known as Project Go Big Green and the goal is to make DHS a greener community.

In order to raise awareness and money, the Environmental Club is setting up multiple fundraisers. According to globalindustrial.com, these water bottle refilling stations could cost anywhere from $400 to $2,100.

The fountain has a tall rectangular feature that has a spot to place your water bottle as the spout from above fills it. Rather than holding your bottle at an angle to catch the arched stream of our current system, the hydration station fills the bottle from a straight stream directly above the area of bottle placement.

Ms. Brumstead and Environmental Club president Alexandra Nichols are designing a Chipotle fundraiser similar to the orchestra’s fundraiser, which allows an organization to receive 50% of the profits made at Chipotle for the day.

They are also planning to do something similar with Tropical Smoothie as well as selling reusable water bottles to encourage people to use the station and prevent the use of multiple plastic bottles. None of the fundraising ideas are final and more discussions are going to take place throughout the coming month.

The plan is to place the hydration station in the main hallway on B-floor right near the boys bathroom because that is where the majority of school traffic is.

“I’d like all the teams in the gym to also have access,” said Ms. Brumstead as she typically sees them using that fountain to refill water bottles before or during practice. “I’d love to get one for each floor, but we have to start somewhere.”

Senior Angeli Tillett is excited about the new initiative. She uses the water fountain every now and then to refill her reuseable water bottle but feels the station would be more convenient. “It’s such a hassle to pay 75 cents for water everyday. If we had [a hydration station] it would make more people environmentally conscious,” she said.

Informing DHS about the environmental hazards of plastic water bottles and reducing the number used is one of Ms. Bumstead’s main goals. “I’m hoping people are going to refill their bottles and not buy six to ten plastic bottles,” she said.

Many students are in favor of the hydration station. They see it as a convenient alternative to the current water fountain system. Junior Roland Abiramia often refills teachers’ water bottles for them and said, “Sometimes the bubblers do not have cold water, and you have to wait for the water to get cold before you refill the bottle,” he said. “We should get one because [the current fountains] take forever, and it gets messy.”

Freshman Tara Couto would refill her water bottles for volleyball and said, “It’s kind of hard to get the right trajectory for the water stream.” Occasionally her hands or sleeves get wet making it uncomfortable throughout the day.

These stations are popping up in all different places. Logan Airport, some high schools such as Mayfield High School in Mayfield, Ohio, and many colleges such as Penn State University and Boston University have taken the initiative to go green by replacing their water fountains with water bottle refilling stations.

Sophomore Michale Pax said, “I would use [the hydration station]. It would be cool.”

He is not the only student who said he would use the water bottle refilling station. Tillet, Couto, Abiramia, and Nichols said they would use the station if we had one.

The hydration station is Ms. Brumstead’s last mission before retirement. Look out for future fundraisers and support the DHS Environmental Club’s initiative to go green.