About The Natural Guard

As long as they can remember the Napoli kids have been attending music festivals. Throughout the years they have been able to experience some interesting things. Meeting Richie Havens at the Bridgeton Folk Festival was inspiration to become involved in The Natural Guard.

We became the South Jersey Chapter of The Natural Guard, an environmental education organization for children from kindergarten through college age. This enabled our children to become aware of environmental concerns in their own community as well as throughout the world.

We had the honor of working with some truly talented young people and some very caring adults. It offered the children opportunities of a lifetime, such as taking part in The Kids World Summit, and Partners for the Planet. That's where Cassidy had the chance to hang out with Richie at Nickelodeon studios and discuss Grateful Dead with Al Gore. Cass also spent time aboard the Clearwater sloop as it sailed down the Hudson River delivering lessons on the environment.

James attended the second Kids World Summit in Salt Lake City to share ideas and information with kids from all over the world. Due to our kids enthusiasm for such endeavors, at one point we had more kids signed up in the Natural Guard than the sports programs run in our town. We had over 150 members taking part in activities like community gardens / tree nurseries, whale watches / adoptions, monitoring river conditions, litter clean ups, recycling programs, the World Series of Birding, collecting data for the state eagle survey, as well as collecting signatures and speaking at rallies in support of our state parks. It was a very rewarding experience, we all learned so much and hopefully made a difference.