50 States, 50 Fixes

The Vermont Green Football Club champions environmental work and draws sold-out crowds, with the help of free ice cream.

It was game night in Burlington, home of the Vermont Green Football Club. The evening, in early June, was unfolding in its usual way. The stands were packed, the crowd was roaring and stamping its feet, with hundreds of Crocs and Birkenstocks pounding metal bleachers.

But there were signs that the team was playing for bigger stakes. Players wore jerseys made of recycled fabric, spectators who biked to the game were rewarded with raffle tickets, and the food trucks offered vegan eats. Before the night was over, the announcer, Tom Mientka-Proctor, made the same announcement that he does at every home game.

“Please take all your trash and recycling out of the stands with you and put them in the appropriate bins,” Mr. Mientka-Proctor, who is from England, thundered through the loudspeaker. Bottles and cans should be empty, he continued, and food waste should go into the compost containers. “Thank you for pitching in for the planet!” he added brightly.

50 States, 50 Fixes is a series about local solutions to environmental problems. More to come this year.

Vermont Green is an amateur soccer club with a mission. Its founders want to offer quality soccer while championing a larger cause befitting Vermont, a state that has pledged to conserve half of its land by 2050 and that generates nearly all of its electricity renewably. Inspired by the Forest Green Rovers in England, known as the world’s greenest football club, the Green’s founders embraced climate action.