Green Mountain Center for Sustainability Notes for May 2024
Submitted by Laird Christensen and Eleanor Tison, Co-Directors
The Green Mountain Center for Sustainability launched a busy Earth Month with the Worldwide Climate and Justice Education Week on April 2nd. As one of hundreds of schools participating in this annual event, Prescott College welcomed students, faculty, and alumni from around the world to talk about regional climate challenges and solutions, including staff and community members from Prescott College’s Dopoi Center in Kenya and the Kino Bay Center in Sonora, Mexico. We also heard from GMC alumni such as Lori Curtis (MS ‘10) reporting from the Galapagos Islands and Barbara Fraser (MS ‘10) from the Amazon Basin.Student workers on the Sustainability Crew organized events over the following weeks, including a soup lunch that featured a community Clothing Swap, and a “Celebrate our Earth” Spirit Week with daily dress-up themes from “Pollinator Day” to “Bring it to Life Seed Day.” The Center was also abuzz with gardening preparations as the grow lights from GMC were set up to start heirloom and locally-sourced seedlings. The Sustainability Center’s kitchen has hosted a weekly Cooking Club, Taco Tuesdays, a sunflower butter workshop, sourdough starter training, and even a team salad-making challenge. You can get a closer look at the work going on through the Green Mountain Center at https://www.instagram.com/pcgarden_compost/.
Students and staff were also involved in Earth Day festivities in downtown Prescott on April 20th, sharing a display that included various campus composting projects. The month wound down with a successful Arbor Day event on Saturday, April 27th, co-organized with the Butte Creek Restoration Council, Tree Campus USA, and the Green Mountain Center. Thirty-five students, staff, and neighbors attended workshops, planted more than 30 native trees or shrubs, and removed over 300 invasive Siberian Elm trees growing along Butte Creek as it passes through campus. April also included a screening of a student-made film, “What Actually Happens to Your Compost and Recycling in Prescott,” featuring our own Nat Burgeff, graduate student and member of the Sustainability Council.
All of these efforts are part of the mission of the Green Mountain Center for Sustainability at Prescott College, which was created to help share the lessons and sustainability practices that made GMC so influential. If you’d like to help support our work, we appreciate any assistance you can offer. We’ve included a button for gifts on the Green Mountain Center website. You can specify what you’d like your contribution to go toward when filling out the form.
And don’t forget: we love sharing news from our GMC alumni, so we hope you will reach out and let us know where the path from Poultney has led you. It’s as easy as sending a message to [email protected].