Young people worldwide are becoming environmental innovators by designing sustainable ways to safeguard the planet they will soon lead. Stella Hong, a senior at James Madison High School, has become one of those changemakers by founding HydroHarvest, an initiative that tackles food insecurity with hydroponic growing kits.
With this program, Stella was recognized as a 2026 Eco-Hero through nonprofit Action For Nature’s (AFN) International Young Eco-Hero Awards. These annual awards celebrate the environmental feats of children ages 8 to 16 as they make strides in addressing issues like climate change, pollution, wildlife conservation and more.
“It’s an incredible honor,” Stella told The Informer. “I was really drawn to that strong sense of community among the awardees, as well as being able to find other passionate youth who are exploring such interesting projects and really making a huge change in their community.”
The high school senior learned about the Eco-Hero Awards while she was a council member on Bow Seat’s Future Blue Youth Council, and hoped to use the program as an opportunity to network with similar-minded people around the world. She and the other 23 honorees are advancing AFN’s mission of nurturing young people’s love for the environment in a way that supports them in being changemakers.
AFN has been hosting these awards since 2003, and President Beryl Kay is determined to use her personal love for nature to ignite that same passion in the young people she works with through the organization. Kay explained, if up-and-coming generations are deprived of a connection with the outdoors, they will miss one of life’s greatest enjoyments.
“We believe youth are the future of this world, and if they’re going to grow up and take care of [it], they need to develop an understanding and a love of nature,” the AFN president told The Informer. “They’re not waiting to grow up; Our Eco-Heroes are taking action right now.”
Planting Seeds of Change
For Stella, taking action meant coming up with a way to create a reliable and accessible source of fresh produce for communities in the Washington metropolitan area through a hydroponics-focused solution. According to the Capital Area Food Bank’s 2026 Hunger Report, 38% of the 4,000 people surveyed in the region face uncertainty about where their next meal will come from, signaling a five-year high.
She noticed that after COVID-19, food insecurity greatly affected her community, and programs that once helped mitigate this began to disappear. In late 2024, she took matters into her own hands and created the HydorHarvest grow buckets, wanting to produce a sustainability-focused model.
“Not only environmental sustainability with using hydroponics, but also sustainability for families,” Stella told the Informer. “We really want to make them have control over their food source and what foods they’re able to grow.”
Hydroponics is a method that uses a water-based nutrient solution instead of soil to grow plants, allowing water recycling and reuse. Through this form of economical water consumption — meaning the minimum amount is used to complete the task of growing without wasting resources — hydroponics typically uses as much as 90% less water than conventional farming methods. This is because the water doesn’t have to be refilled, as the air pocket created when plants soak up water as they grow gives roots ample oxygen. Such techniques allow people to grow inside their homes with minimal maintenance.
While also reducing water usage, the grow buckets Stella designed also cut plastic waste, as they are made from recycled, food-grade containers sourced from local restaurants. Each grow kit includes the following: a bucket system where the plants grow; lettuce, basil, cilantro, dill and kale seedlings; clay pellets meant to surround the roots and block sunlight from hitting the water to prevent algae growth; powder fertilizer; and instructions for how to set up and maintain the growing structure.
To set up the kit, users must fill the buckets with water up to the marked line, then add a three-quarter teaspoon of the fertilizer per gallon of water and mix, ensuring the plant’s roots are completely submerged. Once the lid is placed on the buckets, grow kit users are advised to put the seedlings in the provided black pots and place them in the lids. Then, once the system is stored in a well-lit indoor area where it can receive at least six hours of sunlight daily, the plants are ready to grow.
“I really loved the idea that there was this model that was low cost to create and low cost to maintain,” Gillian Kimura, a Fairfax County resident and HydroHarvest grow kit user, told The Informer. “I have a bit of a brown thumb, so … it’s exciting to see, especially for those who either haven’t done a lot of gardening in the past or who may not have a lot of time to spend watering and taking care of things.”
Kimura was introduced to Stella’s hydroponic system through a workshop at Capital Area Food Bank that she attended with her high school-aged son. She told The Informer that the kits piqued her son’s interest, as he had recently learned about victory gardens, which were used during World War II. Families were encouraged to plant produce in their backyards and vacant lots to tackle food system disruptions. Since COVID-19, these gardens, which rely on compost and regenerative agriculture, have made a comeback nationwide.
“The next generation is really our future,” Kimura said, “so having them have an opportunity to experience the food system and understand the nuances of why and how this impacts them — both from the nutrition side as well as the environmental sustainability side — is important.”
Stella turned to hydroponics after interning at the George Mason President’s Park Hydroponic Greenhouse, where she was inspired by how much food the greenhouse could produce in a small space. This inspiration and direct involvement with the growing method soon became an initiative to help local communities and their environment.
Since its inception, HydroHarvest has reached more than 1,000 youth through training sessions and workshops, distributed more than 200 grow kits, and donated more than 1,100 pounds of produce.
Stella is fond of the initiative’s gardening workshop series, as she believes young people have extraordinary potential to shape how the world views the environment and how humans treat it, and that hands-on experiences like these are crucial to unlocking that capability.
“Increasing the opportunity [for] all different types of youth to have access to these green spaces and hands-on experience with the environment is really important, not only for increasing access to different types of food and nutrition,” the HydroHarvest founder started, “but also [for] tackling the climate crisis and really empowering a future generation of leaders.”
Organizations like AFN and programs like the Young Eco-Hero Awards give young people the resources and support they need to take environmental action and see the sky as their limit when designing solutions to the effects of climate change.
“Our award … validates what they’re doing and shows them that what they’re doing has real value,” Kay told The Informer. “I hope to see that more and more people understand the natural world … and that they take efforts to protect it, and that they understand how precious it is, and how dependent we are upon it.”
The inspiration from efforts that AFN nurtures has a trickle-down effect, as the inventions, businesses, and initiatives that come from the young minds honored as Eco-Heroes go on to educate and motivate all kinds of people from different generations in their communities and abroad.
Stella’s HydroHarvest grow kits have done exactly that, and strive to continue to do so, opening people like Kimura’s eyes to the necessity of a multi-pronged approach when it comes to protecting the environment and strengthening local food systems.
“When we’re talking about food insecurity, I like to think about it as nutrition security and making sure that it’s not just calories, but food that actually meets people’s needs,” Kimura told The Informer. “If we can help the food systems focus on more local procurement as well as production, I think that will go a long way to help build sustainable food systems here in the DMV.”
