Brooke Bâby grew up walking the Lake Michigan shoreline at Gillson Park. This summer, she's back in Wilmette picking up trash along it.

Bâby, a New Trier High School graduate now entering her junior year at the University of Colorado Boulder, joined Go Green Wilmette as an intern in May.

Since then, she has led biweekly beach cleanups at Gillson Park, helped coordinate the organization's annual Sustainable Yard Tour, and built a home electrification brochure aimed at helping Wilmette homeowners understand their options for switching off fossil fuels.

The internship puts a 20-year-old environmental studies major on the ground in the village where she grew up, doing work that touches residents directly.

Go Green Wilmette, which marked its 20th anniversary this spring, runs programming that tries to make sustainability practical rather than abstract.

According to a profile the organization published Thursday, July 30, Bâby has especially enjoyed connecting with residents and seeing how local efforts can make sustainability accessible and actionable.

What she's doing

The beach cleanups run every other week at Gillson Park's South Beach, 800 Gillson Park Drive. Two more sessions remain this summer: Saturday, August 8, and Saturday, August 22, both from 9 to 11 a.m. Participants should bring reusable gloves and a bucket.

The Sustainable Yard Tour, which Bâby helped coordinate, took place Sunday, July 19. The free, self-guided tour visited five Wilmette yards featuring native plants, rain gardens, composting setups, edible gardens, and butterfly habitat, according to The Record North Shore.

Bâby's home electrification brochure is a newer project. The materials are meant to serve as a community resource for residents considering heat pumps, induction stoves, or other electric alternatives, though Go Green Wilmette has not yet announced a distribution plan.

Beyond the internship

At CU Boulder, Bâby majors in environmental studies with minors in business and Spanish. She conducts research with the Media and Climate Change Observatory, a group led by Professor Max Boykoff that monitors climate coverage across 131 media sources globally. She will continue that research as a fall intern.

Her interest in sustainability started on family road trips to national parks, according to the Go Green Wilmette profile. At CU Boulder, she is a member of the Sustainable Business Club, Green Greeks, and a student emissary at SPIKE, an interdisciplinary cohort focused on sustainability initiatives.

What it means for Wilmette

Go Green Wilmette's programming sits alongside other North Shore sustainability efforts. Winnetka launched free home energy assessments for residents in late July, and Wilmette's own pollinator photo contest runs through August 15.

The next Gillson Park beach cleanup is Saturday, August 8, at 9 a.m. No registration is required. Bâby's home electrification brochure, once distributed, could give homeowners a starting point for a conversation many on the North Shore are just beginning to have.