Teen awarded at Celtics game for climate change activism
She had no time to be nervous, and good thing.
Last Wednesday, 15-year-old Ollie Perrault was suddenly thrust onto center court at TD Garden, in front of thousands, as a recipient of a Celtics ‘Heroes Among Us’ award.
“Oh my God, it was a little overwhelming,” the high school sophomore said. “I was contacted on Friday by one of my adult mentors, and she said, ‘I nominated you for this award without telling you. Can you be in Boston Wednesday night?’”
Perrault was honored by the Celtics for her work on climate change. She is the founder of Youth Climate Action NOW, which seeks to give voice to young people concerned about the warming planet.
“So when we think of climate issues we think of these melting ice caps in Antarctica -- and these disconnected statistics and predicaments about future impacts,” Perrault said. “The real impact of climate change is in our backyards, it’s in our farm fields, it’s in the air we’re breathing.”
Perrault ought to know. About four years ago she began noticing changes on her family’s Easthampton farm.
“Extreme rainfall, storm damage, drought -- all these extremes,” Perrault said. “And when I was 11, I was sort of noticing this pattern.”
She also noticed something equally distressing.
“I felt like no one was doing anything about these issues,” Perrault said. “And I just couldn’t believe that a crisis of this level was going unaddressed.”
Perrault said she first got involved with Mass. Audubon’s Statewide Youth Climate Leadership program.
“I was part of organizing one of our first summits,” she said. “These summits mainly focus on education and empowerment.”
Along those lines, Perrault said it’s time for young people to demand action on climate change before it’s too late.
“I think that young people have grown up with this as a reality,” she said. “We’ve been experiencing these impacts on a daily basis. Because we’ve seen climate change in this specific lens many of us know that this crisis is the ultimate issue and it’s of the utmost importance and that we need to be addressing now.”
Perrault was in TD Garden to accept her award on the same night the Prince and Princess of Wales attended the game. She got to meet and talk with the pair -- as well as with Governor-elect Maura Healey.
“I was just completely blown away to have that recognition and to have that opportunity,” she said. “In the moment I had no idea what I was saying... had kind of like a startling moment where I just started talking... Because (Prince William) asked me to go a little more in depth about the things I was passionate about and I was so grateful to have the opportunity to share a little bit about that.”
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