‘Dolphin Defenders’ Focus on Ecology in St. Louis

ST. LOUIS —  In an inner-city neighborhood known more for its gang shootings and crack houses, the young Dolphin Defenders are gradually leaving their mark on the land.

For five years, the preteen environmentalists have been cleaning up alleys, recycling cans and bottles, and helping their neighbors conserve energy.

“They sure impress me,” says the Rev. Barney Kitchen, whose Pilgrim Congregational Church was given low-energy compact fluorescent light bulbs by the group.

“There are drugs, there are gangs, there are broken homes. In the midst of that you have this light, this hope, of a group of kids trying to be as constructive and creative as possible.”

From neighborhood “can scans,” to planting wildlife habitats in vacant lots, to cleaning a trash-choked lake in the city’s Forest Park, the Dolphin Defenders do it all.

“We don’t limit ourselves,” says Neil Andre, the group’s 42-year-old leader. “If it’s environmental, we do it.”

In addition to hands-on work, the church-sponsored club donates money it raises through recycling and other projects to environmental groups that do the work the Dolphin Defenders can’t.

Over the last five years, they have given several thousand dollars to groups working to save the rain forests, combat global warming and promote alternative energy. They have provided scholarships to send other city kids to camp.

Andre says his charges, who are 9 to 12 years old, are from poor families and have “received very little in their lives.”

“When you have that little to give, and you’re willing to give that much, that’s tremendous,” he says.

Andre works with the group as part of his duties as a staff member at Dignity House, a growth and development center supported by the United Church Neighborhood Houses program.

The group’s name is mostly symbolic.

Although they have done what they can to help dolphins, the main reason they chose the name was they wanted to emulate the animals who are intelligent, live in social groups, turn predators away with nose bumps rather than bites and will die before abandoning another dolphin in distress.

A recent Friday afternoon found Andre and his gang scrounging the alleys for old tires to recycle. The Dolphin Defenders believe the tires aren’t only unsightly but unhealthy because the stagnant water collecting inside provides ideal breeding grounds for disease-carrying mosquitoes.

They easily could have recovered 100 tires that Friday afternoon but settled for the 21 they were able to haul home on three rickety grocery carts.

“We’ve got to keep this Earth like God made it, not all dirty and polluted,” says 12-year-old Anthony Huckleberry, the Dolphins’ chief pollution officer. “We should have a whole force, like the police, for pollution control.”

ShaLonda Warren, 12, pointed out an alley that the Dolphin Defenders recently had cleaned, filling trash bins with litter and recycling what they could. Many times the Dolphin Defenders have found that adults have trashed an area soon after they had cleaned it, she said.

But just down the block, gang graffiti are scrawled on a brick wall. Trash and junk, even an old broken down sofa, are piled next to a large city trash container. A German shepherd and a pit bull bark in muddy back yards.

Some of the houses are burned-out shells. Others are falling in on themselves out of neglect and vandalism. The Dolphin Defenders know the hostile environment well.

“I was at a hearing in St. Louis and two members of the Dolphin Defenders got up and testified, and they were just really compelling,” says Mary Holland, a senior policy analyst with President Bush’s council on environmental quality.

“They clearly were the most moving testimony of the day. One of the things that really struck us was their commitment to walking whenever they could.”

By walking, the Dolphin Defenders have discovered nature in the midst of their concrete and asphalt surroundings.

Holland was so impressed with the group she included a special case study of their club in a report prepared for this summer’s United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.

The Dolphin Defenders’ meeting room at Dignity House is filled with their finds--rocks and bird nests and animal bones--displayed neatly in egg cartons and plastic coffee cake containers.

Being a Dolphin Defender helps the youngsters as much as they help the environment, Andre says. For one thing, the club keeps them too busy to think about joining a gang.

But the Dolphin Defenders offer the peer support and acceptance gangs do in a twisted way.

“Most of the kids come to us with a damaged self-image,” Andre says. “The Dolphin Defenders helps them raise that self-image. You can see them grow.”