Florida Panther

Welcome to Young Friends!

Young Friends of the Everglades was founded in 1994 by fourth and fifth graders at Howard Drive Elementary School, Miami, FL and their teachers, Marta Whitehouse and Connie Washburn. This student organization was initially formed in response to plans to build a sports entertainment theme park on a site needed for wetlands restoration. During the 1993-1994 school year, the founders created a variety of educational environmental projects to generate awareness of the need for protective buffer zones around the Everglades. 

Our Mission

“To preserve and protect the Everglades, not just for us, but for future generations through education and children’s awareness.” 

During the first year many interesting and educational projects were created to study the Florida Everglades. There was much to learn and much to do concerning the fascinating Everglades! The teachers and their students fell in love with this wonderful, endangered wetland. 

As club members studied and learned, they began to understand that the Everglades needed their help. The animals were losing their habitat. The air and water was constantly being polluted. The original area of the Everglades had been reduced by half. 

A few fortunate Young Friends founders met Marjory Stoneman Douglas, then 105 years old. Marjory authored The River of Grass in her little cottage on Stewart Avenue in Coconut Grove, Florida. We asked her what she thought of our childrens group, Young Friends of the Everglades. She replied, “Take the children out to the Glades and let them learn, education will be the only way to save the Glades. Tell them the Everglades isn’t saved yet!” 

At the age of 104, Marjory was clearly ecstatic about the involvement of young people with her cause to SAVE THE EVERGLADES! “Take the children into the Everglades. Let them see it!” she stated. “The children are our future and we can’t do without that!” 

Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the pioneer Everglades advocate and celebrated author began her book, The Everglades: River of Grass, with the statement, “There are no other Everglades in the world.” It is our endeavor as Floridians to promote the awareness and protection of this national treasure. The unusual features of climate, biology, and geography in the Everglades present a living laboratory for global studies of nearly every environmental problem evident in the world today.