Allison Rogers

Credit: Martha Stewart

Five reasons to know Allison Rogers...

1. She missed seeing An Inconvenient Truth win the Oscar for best documentary and had to watch it on YouTube, but she’s helping to spread Al Gore’s message about global warming. In September, she went to Nashville to be trained by Gore and a team of scientists to become a “climate change messenger.” Messengers go out into the community and give the lecture that Gore gives in the documentary.

2. She literally walks the walk. When she takes part in parades as part of her Miss Rhode Island duties, instead of riding in the back of a hulking convertible — not the most fuel-efficient car on the planet — Rogers walks the entire route.

3. When she was a Harvard undergraduate, one of the many environmental projects she was involved in included dumpster diving around campus to see what could be reused or recycled as part of the university’s Resource Efficiency Program. “It’s incredible how much you find,” she says. “Dining Services alone loses about $150,000 a year in dishware.”

4. She’s working with the postmaster general on creating a global warming fundraiser stamp, similar to the one for breast cancer. “Global warming isn’t just a pie-in-the-sky concept,” she says. “The more we can get this into our mainstream lives, the better.”

5. After learning that Harvard recycles more than 40 tons of computers every year, many still in great shape, she founded ReStore, a nonprofit that finds new homes for the computers with Harvard employees who can’t afford to buy machines on their own.

A version of this article originally appeared in the Spring 2007 issue of Ed., the magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.