California teen turns eco-anxiety group into 700-member nonprofit, wins $10K

For many young people, the climate crisis did not come as a distant scientific issue but as something deeply personal. Wildfires, extreme weather and an uncertain future could make an already complex world feel even more overwhelming. For Sophie Kim, that anxiety became the impetus to build a community, rather than retreat from the problem. The 18-year-old California student has turned an online community started during the Covid pandemic into The Clean & Green Initiative (TCAGI), a youth-led environmental nonprofit with more than 700 members in more than 30 countries.