A Pella High School student is being recognized for her work in transforming the state’s iconic summer bike ride.

Laurel Stelter was among the national winners of the 2015 President’s Environmental Youth Award.

Stelter took her passion for biking and combined it with a passion for community betterment.

Laurel joined her mother Jenni on the state’s annual RAGBRAI event. After few years on the tour, she became frustrated with how the riders and communities were handling what was left behind in the towns in which they stopped.

“Every day and through every town I would complain to my mom that there was no recycling and it just continued to bother me, and she would tell me ‘there’s nothing we can do about it because we’re on our bikes right now,'” she recalls.

“When I returned from RAGRBAI, people would often ask me ‘how was RAGBRAI?’ and I would say, ‘well there wasn’t very much recycling,’ so it was just an odd thing for a teenager to really be bothered by.”

That following December, Laurel reached out to RAGBRAI officials after encouragement from her mom. Ever since, she’s been presenting annually to communities on the route and developing recycling strategies.