Leadership Stories

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Melissa Poe
Melissa Poe, 23, has been an esteemed voice in youth leadership since she was nine years old. As founder of the world's largest youth-led environmental organization, Kids for a Clean Environment (Kids F.A.C.E.), she has mobilized a membership of 300,000 young people. Poe has traveled the world encouraging young people to adopt earth-friendly attitudes and habits. Among her speaking engagements, she has addressed the Voices of the Future Program at the Earth Summit in Brazil.

Poe has rallied the public around her issue by employing many forms of communication: she launched a massive, national print advertising and letter-writing campaign, recruiting advertisers who donated 250 billboards, across the country, in support of her message. She has produced public service announcements and appeared on several television and radio programs throughout the United States. Kids F.A.C.E. has also launched a number of successful events aimed at mobilizing large numbers of young people. Among these events is the Kid's Earth Flag, in which several thousand children from across the world united to create an environmental display covering the Mall in Washington D.C. The organization also provides education and awareness-building programs for children, such as Earth Odyssey and the Kid's Forest. Since her graduation from college, Poe has been working for the Nature Conservancy and is currently writing a book about her efforts.

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