Senator Flanagan Congratulates Laurel Hill School Student For Winning Earth Day Poster Contest

Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (2^nd Senate District) joined students, staff and parents of Laurel Hill School in East Setauket to congratulate Sam Specht for his first place entry in the New York State Senate’s 2018 Earth Day Poster Contest.  Senator Flanagan presented Sam with a certificate for his winning entry entitled “We Are Creating a Monsterous Problem.”

“Congratulations to Sam on being selected as first place in the 2018 Earth Day Poster Contest.  I thank him for participating and for his interest in protecting our planet.  It was great to see so many of the students of the Laurel Hill School participate in this contest and I thank the teachers and staff of the school for their efforts in making learning about the environment such an important part of their school day,” stated Senator Flanagan.

Sam’s project, which depicted a monster made of bottles holding an environmental poster, was named first place in the contest that included over 4,600 entries from 43 of 63 state senators.  Sam selected plastic bottles for his project to highlight the impact of plastic bottle waste on the planet and to encourage everyone to recycle.  Sam told Senator Flanagan that he discovered that a million bottles are purchased worldwide every minute and 91 percent are not recycled.

During the assembly to celebrate Sam’s victory, Senator Flanagan told the students that their voice is important to the environmental cause.  He also reminded them to speak up on issues like recycling: “I guarantee if one of you said it, people would pay a lot more attention,” he said. “So, don’t think you can’t make a difference, because you can.”