Would you like to be a Student Ambassador for Virginia's Environment?

Applications for the 2025-26 Student Ambassadors are now available here and will be accepted until September 1, 2025.

For the 2024-25 school year we had 67 high school Juniors and Seniors apply to be SAVE (Student Ambassadors for Virginia’s Environment). Four students who participated in our pilot program return this year to be on the Steering Committee to provide feedback and suggestions for the upcoming program this school year. Meet our 2024-25 Student Ambassadors HERE!

There are exciting opportunities to sponsor our Student Ambassador program for teens! Financial support is needed to make the 2025-26 school year as successful as possible. Learn more about this program and ways to be involved: SAVE Sponsorship Information.

For any questions about the program, please reach out to Cristi Lawton, Executive Director, at [email protected].

About the SAVE Program

As part of Keep Virginia Beautiful’s mission to engage and unite Virginians to improve our natural and scenic environment, we believe in a shared responsibility to end littering, improve recycling, and beautify communities. To better reach Virginia’s youth, SAVE is a new program to empower high school students across the Commonwealth as Student Ambassadors.

Tree graphic with SAVE, Student Ambassadors for Virginia's Environment

SAVE (Student Ambassadors for Virginia’s Environment) is modeled after best-practice student ambassador programs successfully implemented by other Keep America Beautiful (KAB) state affiliates. An abbreviated pilot program was launched during the Spring semester of January, 2024, and concluded last June. Its success prompted the continuation and expansion of the program for the 2024-25 school year.

Student Ambassadors are expected to organize and implement two litter cleanups and host a school-wide or community educational project or event. For a one-page overview of the program refer to the SAVE Program Overview; or for more details on the requirements of the program, please see the SAVE Handbook.

In summary, SAVE seeks to inspire and empower teenagers across the state of Virginia to help keep their communities clean and beautiful by providing them with resources to:

Educate on the importance of litter prevention and other environmental efforts, like recycling and waste reduction;
Spread awareness and organize efforts in their local communities to eradicate litter; and
Become better leaders and capacity builders for environmental stewardship opportunities.

SAVE invites high school Juniors and Seniors to participate, and we are looking for Student Ambassadors who are passionate about our mission. SAVE Ambassadors must agree to the following:

Commit to ten months of service as an Ambassador, with at least 25 volunteer hours committed between September to June 2025;
Review and agree to program requirements as outlined in the SAVE Ambassador Handbook;
Attend a virtual orientation and monthly virtual meetings (meetings are recorded and can be viewed at times that work best for Ambassadors);
Organize and participate in two litter cleanup events and submit a litter tally and cleanup reports;
Complete one community project and share results with KVB; and
Submit a profile picture for the SAVE webpage and share pictures of your events and project on your social media and tag KVB.