Selkirk College
EN-9: Community Partnerships

The Kootenay Society for Community Living has had the contract to manage recycling at the college for the past twelve years and is responsible for managing the recycling stations located around campus. a) Timeframes: The program has been in place for the past 12 years and is an ongoing, awarded contract. b) Dimensions of Sustainability: The program supports social equity, economic prosperity, and ecological health. An underrepresented group of people are being meaningfully employed in a sector that works at minimizing waste on campus. c) Institutional Support: The College supports the partnership by providing a room where recyclables can be cleaned, sorted and organized, and by providing supplies such as bins and bags. Also, a work-study position (100 hours/year) has been created to assist the KSCL employees with their job. d) Engagement: The local community members engaged in the project are the KSCL employees. The campus members engaged are the hired work-study students, and the Campus Manager and Director of Facilities for program support. Ongoing partnership with the Kootenay Native Plant Society a local conservation non-profit organization whose mission is to promote knowledge, appreciation, conservation, and restoration of West Kootenay native plants and natural habitats through education, integrative research (specializing in plants, that have indigenous significance), and on the ground activities. KNPS through working in community connects people, plants, and place. The Partnership formed in 2014 with Selkirk College and they are working with School of Environment and Geomatics students to salvage camas from local meadows, propagating camas in the beds on the campus, plant Monarch way stations, and help with restoration trials adjacent to college grounds. As well, the Kootenay Camas Project also serves to expand connections with First Nations in Washington and BC.

Selkirk College in funding partnership with the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia has conducted The Food Systems Project, The project has identified opportunities to increase food production in the Columbia Basin-Boundary region in an environmentally, economically, socially and culturally sustainable way. Research focused primarily on areas where Selkirk College's Rural Development Institute could provide information to food system actors to help improve the food production, processing, distribution and retail sectors. These opportunities were identified based on a review of the three recently completed Agriculture Plans from the Regional Districts of Kootenay Boundary (local) , Central Kootenay (local) and East Kootenay (non-local), and through consultations with a project advisory committee consisting of agricultural stakeholders from across the region. The project ran from 2014 to March 2016. Several themes emerged including increasing demand for local food and decreasing supply; land supply challenges; aging demographic of farm labour and mentor-ship needed for younger generations; financial viability of agriculture industry. This research is helping to transform the local food supply by identifying assets and gaps, and opportunities to improve the regions food systems. Results from this project will help build the capacity of key stakeholders and decision-makers from across the region to make informed decisions related to regional food systems and related land use planning.

See above East Kootenays is part of this project and is a non-local community.