When it comes to teenager hobbies, Fort Myers High students Luke Scrabis and Benjamin O’Brien both have pretty typical lists.
“I like to fish. I like to play golf. I'm on the golf team at Fort Myers High,” Scrabis said.
“I like to go on the boat. I like to go to the beach,” O’Brien added. “I like to hang out with my friends.”
But this summer, the Green Wave seniors decided to do something different.
Something ... green.
“We just wanted to do something that would, I don't know, give back to everything that's so important to us," Scrabis said.
So the pair hatched an idea, hit the water and started collecting loose mangrove propagules.
They eventually planted them near Fort Myers Beach, on county land still recovering from Hurricane Ian.
“The impacts from the storm are still very prevalent,” O’Brien said. “We go back to school, and there's still friends of mine who don't live in their house."
That reality only motivated them to do more. So, fitting for 17-year-olds, they created a Snapchat group and Instagram page to spread word of their work: The Greenshore Initiative.
“We've attracted people from our school and other schools in the area who didn't even know us, have reached out and been wanting to come with us to plant these mangroves,” O’Brien said.
That’s exactly what they’ve done.
From Fort Myers Beach to Sanibel and even Sarasota, the pair and those they’ve pulled in have now planted more than 10,000 propagules.
“We really care about the waterways,” Scrabis said. “We came out here to kind of protect what we cherish so much about southwest Florida."
Their mission is much like the mangroves themselves: take something small – something good – and help it grow.
“The end goal here is to just keep this alive, keep that spirit alive,” O’Brien said. “And the call for action."