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Center for Student Engagement & Leadership

2015-16 CAMPUS GREEN Fund Awards

Congratulations to the following 4 proposals that were funded through the Campus Green Fund! ($40,781.00 allocated)

Campus Community Farm ($20,230)

The Edmonds College Community Garden started in March of 2012 as an effort to bring a diverse array of students, faculty, and staff around sustainable living practices and take advantage of an under-utilized space. Since its inception, over 1,050 unique individuals have volunteered their time in the garden; over 350 more have visited; over 4,800 volunteer hours have been served; and an estimated 6,500 pounds of produce has been harvested. Now, after three years and a month of operation, the Edmonds College Campus Community Farm is no longer a no man’s land but boasts over twenty-five raised beds, a hoop house that produces 365 days a year, an array of perennial edible trees and shrubs, a variety of bee-loving flowers plus an edible rain garden.
The benefits of this sustainably managed campus community farm are fourfold:
 
  1. Raising awareness regarding a wide array of sustainability issues concerning food- sources, personal health, native species, and urban and community-based agriculture.
  2. Providing a location and context for instruction and service-learning in a variety of topics including English, Anthropology, Horticulture, Culinary and Energy Programs. SAgE, Sustainable Agriculture Education started utilizing much of the space as their outdoor classroom.
  3. Giving the campus community access to fresh, local food. Countless volunteers have sampled the farm’s produce. So far, 110 people form the campus community have taken home produce as regular harvesters and many hundreds more on an occasional basis. Culinary harvest crops regularly and uses these in their daily menu offered at the Colleges’ Cafeteria.
  4. Crating a location on campus that is uniquely our own and can serve as a venue and platform for other sustainability-related events. The Campus Community Farm serves as a model for the region as well as state-wide programs and provides a center for mentoring/training opportunities.

Cultural Kitchen ($5,732)

Funds for the 2015-2016 school year will continue to support the Cultural Kitchen development. The funds will be used for a student coordinator to maintain service projects that will maintain and continue to improve the area. They will also focus their hours on the “Sustaining Culture through Food’ lecture and demonstration series. The series will coordinate with the seasonal produce that the Community Farm is harvesting. This will allow for classes and events to take place through fall, winter and spring in the Cultural Kitchen.

Hive Manager and Visitor’s Bench for Edmonds College Honeybee Colonies ($1,819)

The goal of this project is to better coordinate the care and management of our honeybee colonies by hiring a student worker to serve as a hive manager. Having a stable bee community would benefit the sustainability of the Community Garden along with the biodiversity of the region in general.
 
Having hives also provides opportunities for service learning, providing educating on good environmental practices such as knowing what kind of plants to grow, and undergraduate research for students. The hives have already been the subject of research on the various structures of pollen carried by bees, and students have presented this work at two different conferences.
 
Funds will be used to hire and train a student worker to manage the hives in order to achieve two objectives: insure that the bees are well cared for and maintained and to better engage the student population. An engaged student worker is more likely to draw other students into the project. The role of the student worker would be as follows. They would be expected to undergo a few hours of training so that they are knowledgeable about how to care for the hives. This would take place during late spring or early summer quarter. Beginning in the fall, the student would be responsible for inspecting the hives, feeding the bees, monitoring for pests, and communicating with the campus about the bees. This person would also manage the Beekeeping Club’s Facebook page so as to keep the campus informed about what is happening with the bees.

SAgE Student Farm-to Campus Program ($13,000)

The SAgE Farm-to-Campus Pilot Project will establish an on-campus weekly Farmer’s Market; direct wholesale relationship between Edmonds College Food Service and Culinary Arts with the new peri-urban SAgE Sammamish Valley Student Farm; create system for using the Puget Sound Food Hub for distribution; student-led development of related marketing and educational materials, creation of curriculum models for multiple departments at the college.
The SAgE Farm-to-Campus Pilot Project addresses the following sustainability issues:
  • Limited local, organic food supply currently available from the Campus Community Farm to Campus Food Service and Culinary Arts
  • Lack of a weekly on-campus Farmer’s Market/Venue for student-grown, farm produce sales to be used for student leadership opportunities, curriculum support, and outreach
  • Lack of on-campus CSA model whereby student, staff, and faculty may purchase a subscription and for use in curriculum across departments
  • Lack of cohesive point-of-sale marketing materials and addressing food sustainability and nutrition for student, faculty staff, visitors in the campus cafeteria, Culinary Arts dining area, and also for sales to outlets including food banks
  • Improve food security at Edmonds College
    · Decreases carbon footprint of food purchasing by Edmonds College through direct purchasing through a food hub
  • Encourage and contribute to a healthy lifestyle for Edmonds College students, faculty, staff, and local community including low income families
  • Expand hands-on lab/practical experiences in sustainable agriculture at a unique scale to augment the Campus Community Farm utilizing a new peri-urban 4 acre Student Farm in nearby Sammamish Valley (SAgE SMV) and on-campus curriculum support for multiple departments related to food and agriculture sustainability
  • Improve long-term financial sustainability of SAgE Program by creating diversified sources of revenue from the Farmer’s Markets, CSA subscription, and larger volume produces sales from the SAgE SMV to Edmonds College Food Service and Culinary Arts Programs.