Green Mountain College
ER-2: Student Sustainability Outreach Campaign

The Student Campus Greening Fund (SCGF)is a student-run program designed to help facilitate greening initiatives that increase awareness and decrease the school’s ecological impact. Every GMC student contributes to the fund through a $30 allocation from their college activities fee every semester. The Fund-Loving Committee, comprised wholly of students, advertises the annual grant sums, advises students in the grant-writing process, and provides technical assistance for the implementation of approved projects. Students design projects and submit proposals. Awards are based on a student vote. In 2010, the Fund-Loving Committee began a new outreach campaign to involve more students in the campus greening process. Co-directors of SCGF gave a presentation about the greening fund to every Images of Nature class, a class required of all first-year students, with the goal of having more first and second year students write SCGF grants. Encouraged by their instructors, many Images of Nature students developed a sustainability project using the format of a Student Campus Greening Fund proposal.

In 2010 nearly $50,000 of funding was approved for campus sustainability projects. Large projects which have now been implemented include a new freezer/refrigeration unit for the College's food service provider (Chartwells) to increase the amount of local food served in the dining hall, a new Eco-Rep Program, and a bridge built by a class conducted by the Yestermorrow Design/Build School for the College's Deane Nature Preserve. Fifteen projects in 2009 were funded for a total of $49,653.91. Completed projects include: indoor compost buckets for dorm kitchens and a student position to collect the compost; a green bikes shelter and manager, repair of the campus wind-turbine, additions to existing native garden beds; purchase of 20 more recycling bins to be placed at locations across campus, building and landscaping of an outdoor classroom, purchase of a building dashboard to monitor energy use and a thermal efficiency audit performed on campus buildings.