Earlham College
PAE-19: Community Sustainability Partnerships

Earlham has partnerships with Cope Environmental Center, Galileo Charter School, The Mayor's Office and The City of Richmond, and Parks and Recreation Department. Earlham has a formal partnership with Richmond's Cope Environmental Center. This center promotes the sustainable use of the Earth's resources through education, demonstration, and research. Cope offers a variety of seasonally appropriate activities for school children such as maple sugaring in early spring. There is a Sustainable Living Demonstration Home on the grounds to show how an existing home can be made more energy efficient and environmentally friendly through relatively simple alterations. An extensive network of hiking trails is open to the public, and the center has a large collection of conifers including trees native to this area. The cope center has teamed up with Earlham student volunteers as well as Earlham work-study programs to assist with administrative tasks, research for grants, taking care of the facilities and grounds, and to help develop and lead programs such as assisting with events for school groups. Contact Stephanie Hays-Mussoni (director) at s.hays@copeenvironmental.org for more information. Earlham is partnered with the Galileo Charter School, a public school for grades K-3. The Galileo Charter School is currently in the process of developing an after-school environmental club with the help of Earlham students. Earlham enjoys a partnership with the Mayor's Office in the city of Richmond. In the past, Earlham students and faculty have helped with seasonal projects such as Spring/Fall Neighborhood clean-up. Students have also engaged in a recycling awareness project which increases awareness of and implementation of sustainable practices in the city building. Volunteers have collected, weighed, and recorded recycling and designed educational bulletin boards and displays. They have also coordinated canvassing of neighborhoods to increase awareness and utilization of the city's curbside recycling program. Other opportunities to work on projects on sustainability have included the efforts to enhance and preserve Richmond's designation as a CLEAN city in conjunction with the Richmond Wayne County Environmental Action Council. Earlham and the Parks and Recreation of Richmond are partners. Richmond maintains a number of parks throughout the city. The parks sponsor a number of events and activities for people of all ages. Earlham students have assisted with event planning and marketing, helped with ongoing and one-time children's programs which include monthly nature programs for kids, helped with events at the Senior Community center, and helped to maintain park grounds.