Hello people of Earth,
My favorite part of today was definitely our trip to Berkeley, specifically to the Berkeley Student Food Collective. Students from University of California Berkeley applied for a grant to start their own grocery store a few years ago. The quaint grocery is entirely volunteer-run and organized completely by students. All the produce in the store is from local farmers markets (except the yummy avocados). The store is full of entirely organic and fair trade options as well as some unique hand-made items like t-shirts and recipe books. To no one's surprise my favorite part was the whole section dedicated to fair-trade chocolate. This market inspired me to advocate for something similar of sorts at State.
P.S. Here's a link to their page: http://berkeleystudentfoodcollective.org
My favorite part of today was definitely our trip to Berkeley, specifically to the Berkeley Student Food Collective. Students from University of California Berkeley applied for a grant to start their own grocery store a few years ago. The quaint grocery is entirely volunteer-run and organized completely by students. All the produce in the store is from local farmers markets (except the yummy avocados). The store is full of entirely organic and fair trade options as well as some unique hand-made items like t-shirts and recipe books. To no one's surprise my favorite part was the whole section dedicated to fair-trade chocolate. This market inspired me to advocate for something similar of sorts at State.
P.S. Here's a link to their page: http://berkeleystudentfoodcollective.org
On another note, I ran into a friend from back in Baltimore, Maryland. Hi Ryan.
Today we had an even earlier start than yesterday! We left the hostel at about 7:45 to catch a bus down to Pier 33 to board the ferry for our tour of Alcatraz. The ferry service in collaboration with the parks department is dedicated to maintaining sustainable strategies. The boat is powered by solar panels, and wind turbines that charge the four batteries in addition to a conventional diesel generator. Monitors aboard the boat show live usage stats and information posters to educate visitors.
Later in the day we took the BART across the bay to Berkeley where we were given an abridged tour of the sustainable practices that Berkeley was implementing. A project funded by their TGIF (The Green Initiative Fund) was the ReUse Station where students could drop off unwanted materials and school supplies and take and whatever else was left there (picture below). After the tour we met with the Student Environmental Resource Center (SERC) to share strategies about sustainability. Along with writing grants, connecting groups, and serving as a resource for students SERC has created ECO ( The Environmental Coalition) which is a collaborative student group with representatives from the sustainability-related clubs on campus. We believe that the sustainability movement at NC State really lacks this sense of collaboration that ECO supports. Although we have all these groups on our campus (WESA, EcoVillage, State Stewards, Fossil Free, Campus Farmers Market, Sustainability Office, etc) we have no sense of overall community and identity towards sustainability.
During the Berkley tour, we witnessed some of their current sustainability projects. One of the most interesting and debated projects on campus was the conversion of grassy fields being converted into low water landscapes. Generally this was accomplished in a two step process. The first step was to let the grass turn a "golden brown." Essentially, wait for the grass to die and return it's nutrients back into the soil. Following this, native, drought resistant plants would be planted, along with a healthy layer of mulch. As California is currently in a drought, saving water is an important aspect of being sustainable. Furthermore, UC Berkeley also puts it's lawn watering system under the grass. This means that there are no water heads seen above ground. By doing this, UC Berkeley saves the water that would be evaporated if a more conventional method of watering lawns were used for some other purpose.