A student-led nonprofit building sustainable solutions for Eastern Kentucky.

Future Forward is a student-led environmental nonprofit founded by Anikaa Sharma, now a junior at Pikeville High School. The idea took root in the summer of 2025, during a research internship at UC Santa Cruz. One afternoon at lunch, she finished eating and stacked everything on her tray, from the paper boat of fries to a half-eaten apple, and carried it all to the trash. Her friends stopped her. With a multitude of bins right in front of her, almost nothing on her tray actually belonged in the trash. When they asked why she threw everything away, she replied: “That's all I've ever known.”

In Pike County, there had never been a green bin to walk past. So she learned from scratch, and by the end of the summer, it became second nature. When she came home to a county debating the future of its landfill, one thought kept returning: the habits she built in one summer could take root in Eastern Kentucky too. That belief became Future Forward, a nonprofit dedicated to putting environmental action in the hands of Eastern Kentucky's students.