Portland Community College
PRE-2: Points of Distinction

The Basic Needs, Sustainability & Leadership (BNSL) program strives to provide meaningful, action-oriented opportunities to advance the interconnected issues of basic needs support, including food and housing security and transportation access, legal aid and addressing the climate crisis to advance an equitable and sustainable community for our students. 

The BNSL Service model provides a peer to peer support model which centers student mutual aid. It’s made up of four teams: Basic Needs, Legal Aid, Eco Justice and Peer Navigators. Students help drive the work of the program in their roles as student ambassadors. Ambassadors represent three arms of the program, including the Panther Pantry, the PCC Legal Resource Center, and Environmental Justice Work. The goals of the program are to:

• Engage student leaders in developing an inclusive, equitable basic needs framework built on mutual aid and trust.
• Integrate Equity and Basic Needs Programs into Student Life and Leadership Sustainability Initiatives.
• Develop programming focusing on sustainability, food and housing security, legal aid and environmental racism, including Free Food Markets, Panther Packs, Earth Week Programming and Climate Anxiety Workshops.
• Increase access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable transportation, housing, legal aid and food.
• Enhance institutional awareness of and support for existing sustainability and climate justice co-curricular offerings.
• Work towards achieving the goals of PCCs Climate Action Plan.
• Provide support and promote PCC Sustainability programs, including events, activities and campus Learning Gardens.

Additionally, BNSL houses Peer Resource Navigators (PRN) which are PCC students from PCC’s Family and Human Services program who provide PCC students with information and referrals to basic needs resources like food, housing, transportation, and healthcare so they can focus on their personal, academic and career goals. PRN’s implement a Peer-to-Peer service model rooted in best practices and mutual aid theory to help PCC students with navigating basic needs, resources and systems using a trauma-informed and asset-based approach. PRN’s possess foundational knowledge and experience, including coursework in Mental Health First Aid, suicide intervention skills, multicultural practices, and case management. PRNs are committed to social justice and equity in their work and often have lived experiences navigating complex systems.

BNSL Program Overview

At PCC, Climate Action is interwoven throughout curricular and co-curricular offerings, operations, student life. Beginning with our PCC’s 2021 Climate Action Plan: Resiliency, Equity, and Education for a Just Transition, we created a five-year roadmap toward climate justice. Unified under a shared vision, PCC’s 2021 Climate Action Plan established a new carbon neutrality goal of 2040 and outlined clear pathways for equity-focused climate action to be woven throughout operations, academics, student engagement, and future planning.

Since 2021, we've 

• hosted annual workshops for student leaders throughout college life on climate justice
• created resources for students, staff and faculty on climate anxiety
• created resources and grant opportunities for faculty to use in integrating climate justice into their courses
• integrated a climate equity tool into project planning
• become partners in the Portland Clean Air Construction Collaborative
• obtained scholarship opportunities from the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Funds to help students join the clean energy transition
• joined the Oregon Clean Energy Workforce Coalition
• added 11.2 MWh of renewable purchases to our inventory
• built an additional 400KW of onsite solar
• added 8 electric fleet vehicles
• reduced the amount of diesel powered grounds equipment
• redeveloped the Mass Timber Opportunity Center at 42nd
• supported Our Just Future and Home Forward to create low income housing at our Southeast Campus and the Opportunity Center at 42nd to ease the housing crisis on low-income Portlanders; and
• continually shared our experience with our climate action plan locally and nationally through organizations such as the Public Sector Sustainability Round Table, the Washington Oregon Higher Education Sustainability Conference, the Association for Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education

To help advance regional and sustainability education and climate action, PCC participates in many work groups, professional organizations and conference planning. One notable example is the Washington Oregon Higher Education Sustainability Conference (WOHESC), for which PCC is a founding member and annual co-planner. We are proud to be the host institution this year. WOHESC is a platform for inspiring change, facilitating action, and promoting collaboration around sustainability and social justice within the PNW region's higher education institutions. Educational sessions, meetups and networking opportunities empower participants to advance action steps to create change. Solutions shared at the conference are tailored for implementation in our unique political, social, economic and environmental climate. 

As the host institution, we’re providing two tours and offering speakers from our Administration, Faculty, Facilities Management Services, Planning and Capital Projects, and Academic Affairs. Regional conferences like WOHESC also offer exceptional opportunities for student participation, particularly for community college students and we’re pleased to be sending so many students to the conference this year.

Photo Alt Text: PCC Staff and students at the Washington Oregon Higher Education Sustainability Conference in Bellingham Washington 2024 after announcing that they would be the host institution in 2025.