CATCHING UP

CatRock Launches Adventure Store: A Youth-Led Advocacy Project

CatRock is proud to launch the online CatRock Adventure Store featuring an exciting range of handmade-in-the Bronx masks as an environmentally friendly way to stay safe during the pandemic. Every purchase helps support our efforts to donate masks and raise awareness of the harmful environmental effects of PPE litter. 

Students have donated hundreds of masks in the Bronx and across the country to promote healthy communities and a clean environment. Donating masks to Inspiring Connection Outdoors students in Los Angeles, Chicago, New Jersey, Palm Beach Country, Detroit, and Tampa Bay helped CatRock students promote safe communities and a clean environment beyond the Bronx.

The CatRock Adventure Store is the culmination of a youth-led advocacy project focused on environmental activism through social entrepreneurship. This entire process – from the idea of making the masks through store launch – brings the CatRock mission to life. The store will offer other student made and designed products (t-shirt, hats, water bottles) that address social and environmental issues.

“The CatRock students came together to solve an environmental and community problem and make safe and inspiring masks,” explains Craig Meisner, CatRock co-founder and executive director. “Along the way, they became social entrepreneurs and acquired valuable skills.”  

Inspiring and empowering young people to take charge and make a positive impact in their own communities through environmental activism and advocacy is central to the CatRock mission. So last spring, when CatRock students decided that making reusable masks would provide an alternative to the disposable PPE littering the streets and parks of their Bronx neighborhoods, CatRock’s leadership was on board. 

All through the summer and fall, the students – under the tutelage of Pamela Cooper, CatRock’s Maker-in-Residence – learned every aspect of mask fabrication and distribution while making hundreds of masks in the CatRock Adventure Makerspace & Design Lab. The students learned invaluable technical and business skills. They reaped the rewards of teamwork and began to see themselves as social entrepreneurs. Most importantly, the students experienced the impact their work had on the community. 

“It’s the best feeling…helping the community, and helping keep everyone safe,” says Christopher L., CatRock Mask Project team member.