School’s out for the summer. You’re young and someone can get their hands on a bus; it’s time for a road trip. But for one group, this journey promises to be quite different, as does the bus.

Tomorrow, 13 young Americans will begin a two-month trip across the country promoting youth engagement in public service and the legacy of late Congressman Morris “Mo” Udall, the Arizona Democrat who championed environmental and Native American issues. The members of the Udall Legacy Bus Tour, composed of current and former Morris K. Udall Foundation scholarship winners, will travel in the first ever “green-certified” motor coach. In a recent phone interview, crew member Eli Zigas called the tour “a culmination of a year-long celebration of public service” marking the 10-year anniversary of the Udall foundation’s education programs, which include an undergraduate scholarship, a congressional internship for Native Americans, and a fellowship for doctoral candidates focused on the environment. 

Donated by Motor Coach Industries and certified by the University of Vermont, the bus will be the first ever “Green Coach”. It received three leaves, Zigas said, for using biodiesel and a new EPA 2007 compliant engine system and for being carbon neutral.

The bus will be fueled by a B-20 blend of 80 percent ultra-low sulfur diesel and 20 percent biodiesel that Zigas called “home grown energy” that was less dependent on foreign energy sources. And since the ultra-low sulfur diesel will be used with the specific EPA engine, “You get a 97 percent reduction in sulfur emissions,” Zigas said. “You get a 98 percent reduction of particulate matter emissions.” He said that the bus has installed an emissions tracking device that will monitor emissions; the results will be displayed in real time on the foundation’s website. To make the bus carbon-neutral, the group will buy carbon offsets from Native Energy, a majority Native American-owned company, Zigas said: “If we can use our carbon offsets to reduce our carbon footprint, then we should do it.”

During their 54-day trip, the group will visit young people doing public service in 26 cities, including six National Parks and six Native American communities. Two project highlights include replanting for healthy soil and an urban canopy in New Orleans, LA and building campgrounds with the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde in Grand Ronde, Ore. Zigas said the trip’s  blog would keep a running record of the group’s activities; he said he wished that the bus would pass through Iowa.

Zigas, a 2004 Udall scholar and 2006 graduate of Grinnell College in Iowa, said he was excited to highlight young people engaging in public service and promote Udall’s legacy. A congressman for 30 years, Udall ran for president in 1976 and after losing the Democratic nomination to Jimmy Carter, titled his autobiography “Too Funny to be President.” (At one point in the campaign, Udall was playing golf. Asked if he had a handicap, he said, “I'm a one-eyed Mormon Democrat from conservative Arizona. You can’t find a higher handicap than that.”) Congress established the Udall Foundation  in honor of his commitment to public service. “Mo was known for his bipartisanship and [his] having friends in both parties,” Zigas said. “The issues that he grappled with in Congress are still pertinent today. And he believed in the power of young people.”

Zigas (who is also a friend of the writer) was a tireless activist on the Grinnell campus who sought to make the college more environmentally friendly. He engages in public service “because I want to make a difference in the world, and it sounds cliché but there is a great satisfaction in changing the world around you for the better,” he said. “You can do that in many ways, but public service is especially satisfying because you’re not working for your own enrichment but for others … community enrichment that benefits you and those you know and even those you don’t know.”

Zigas said he was hopeful the tour would show that young people are engaged in service. “I know a lot of young people who are involved in public service. I know a lot who aren’t as well,” he said. “I think this tour is going to show that there are a lot of young people who are out there, a lot of young people working on these issues.” Zigas recalled an old Mo Udall quote: “Just open the doors and let the young people in," he said. "They’ll know what to do.”