Indiana University Indianapolis
EN-5: Outreach Campaign

The inaugural Energy Challenge took place in the 2018 fall semester. Three university residence halls competed over a period of three weeks to reduce their energy consumption through behavior change. Students were engaged through their residence sustainability coordinators, as well as marketing materials disseminated through social media, campus publications, and the campus sustainability website featuring an interactive dashboard. The students running the Energy Challenge met with the University Student Government (USG) to spread awareness and gather input. Regardless of residence status, the Office of Sustainability collected pledges from students, faculty, and staff committing to reduce their energy usage through various activities ranging across categories like lighting, heating/cooling, transportation, water consumption, and waste reduction. The residence hall with the greatest energy reduction received a celebration party and their name was listed in the Energy Challenge banner that permanently hangs in the Campus Center.

All three residence halls collectively saved 38,408.8 KWh of electricity. The winners reduced their energy usage by 11.6%.

From November 12th-16th, 2018 IUPUI hosted a series of events in respect of the national Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week (HHAW) to raise awareness and promote ending poverty in our own community, along with strengthening the national movement to end hunger and homelessness. Bringing attention to the plight of the hungry and homeless fosters greater understanding and solidarity, inspiring others to take action. The campaign kickoff event at the Campus Center featured a performance by the Young Actors Theatre, insprired by research of real-life stories of homelessness among youth. A community resource fair was hosted by Student Affairs, providing information about services and programs available to the campus and local community. A volunteer program called Jaguars in the Streets gathered 60 volunteers to give back to area organizations. During this campaign, attention was brought to IUPUI's food rescue programs, the Campus Kitchen at IUPUI and Paw's Pantry. The Campus Kitchen hosted their a campus community dinner, called "Gather at the Table." This event served over 100 individuals free, warm meals made by the Campus Kitchen using rescued food. Paw's Pantry hosted "Jam the Pantry," an annual food drive aiming to fulfill the needs of the community throughout the holiday season. A Pack-a-Meal event with Million Meal Movement led volunteers in packing meals that included vitamins, minerals, dried vegetables, soy protein, and rice to create wholesome meals. All meals packed were distributed at Paw’s Pantry. During HHAW, all post-consumer food waste was collected from all employees and students during lunch hours and analyzed for trends in IUPUI food waste generation. Over the week, 711.7 lbs of leftovers were thrown away by IUPUI students, faculty, and staff - an average of 142.34 lbs per lunch period. Scaled up to across the 32 week academic year, that's nearly 23,000 lbs of food thrown away a year.

The Gather at the Table community dinner served 100 warm meals using rescued food. To date, the Campus Kitchen at IUPUI has rescued nearly 32,000 lbs of food from waste, preparing it into 10,625 warm meals. The Pack-a-Meal event gathered 60 volunteers and packed 5,000 meals to donate to Paw's Pantry. A subsequent food waste audit found a total of 557lbs of food were thrown away, demonstrating an improvement from the semester before.