photo credit: Mark Bult

TEENS DELIVER MESSAGE TO MORNING COMMUTERS HUMAN SIGN OVER 101: "SAVE THE FOOTHILLS"

Menlo Park, CA -- Members of BAA+PCCF's Schools Group, a youth environmental organization, gathered at sunrise to deliver a message to morning commuters from a pedestrian footbridge over Highway 101 in Menlo Park (6:45am Friday, November 17, 2000).

A dozen high school students and a few members of the Stanford Open Space Alliance (SOSA), held 18 four-foot-high letters spelling out "SAVE THE FOOTHILLS", to shed light on Stanford University's plans to build over 40,000 square feet of development in the currently pristine area between Junipera Serra Boulevard and Highway 280.

Northbound commuters, which the teens thought would largely consist of South Bay residents heading north to work, couldn't miss the huge red letters, stretching across all five northbound lanes. Members of BAA+PCCF have employed the human sign tactic before. In 1999 the Schools Group asked morning commuters, "WHY NOT CARPOOL?", and a decade ago the organization implored, "STOP NUCLEAR TESTING."

Bay Area Action and the Peninsula Conservation Center Foundation (BAA+PCCF), two of the region's leading environmental nonprofits, recently merged. The Schools Group, made up of teens from various Peninsula schools, is one of over a dozen programs of the organization. Others include stewardship and restoration of the 609-acre Arastradero Preserve in Palo Alto, restoration of the San Francisquito Creek watershed, an Electric Vehicle project, and a large Environmental Library and Resource Center.