By Parker Leipzig
When sophomore journalism major Lily Howard founded Save the Wave, a student-run nonprofit working towards eliminating harmful plastics from the ocean in high school, she and her partners did not foresee the amount of success they would receive as a small team with large goals.
Abigail Hummel, one of Howard’s childhood friends and a contributor to some of the art on the clothing and sticker designs, said the sales started off small, selling to fellow students at their high school, and as it has grown, the team became excited to be able to share their passion with people.
“I don’t think we were expecting as many people to be interested in our designs like that,” Hummel said. “I mean, when you get that kind of support towards a common cause that you all care about, it really just inspires not only yourself but the people around you.”
Howard and her brother grew up near the Chesapeake Bay. Seeing the polluted waters in their hometown is what sparked their interest in aiding the environment and wanting to do more somehow. Howard’s brother, Grafton, has also created some of the artwork and contributed to the photos of the products on the website.
According to the Save the Wave website, Ryan Godfrey, who went to high school with Howard and was in the entrepreneurship club with her, is also part of the team involved in the product development side of the business.
Like many nonprofits, Save the Wave forcibly took a pause while the pandemic ravaged the area, causing the sales to decrease. While many might call that a setback, Howard and her team have still managed to raise over $8,000 to date, which goes towards their partnerships with larger nonprofits such as Project Aware and Oceana. Howard said their No. 1 sellers are the sweatshirts.
Howard said she still has bigger goals for the organization.
“If we could possibly be able to become like organizations that we’re donating to and actually go out and do the cleaning up and like making a much bigger impact,” Howard said.
She also said she hopes Save the Wave can start to use recycled materials to make their clothing, which would make their brand even more sustainable. Howard has these aspirations but knows the organization would need to add more people to the team to make this possible.
Save the Wave combines Howard’s passion for art, entrepreneurship and sustainability in the environment into this nonprofit.
“Even though there are a bunch of organizations doing something about this, there’s never enough so we wanted to be a part of that and just spread it in our community to inspire other people to care about it,” Howard said.