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As the Sustainability Coordinator for the SUNY Fredonia Academic Community Engagement (FACE) Center, Jarvis wrote the grant to promote greater collaboration between the local community and the campus in the area of sustainability.
Working with two primary community partners, the Chautauqua County Rural Ministry’s (CCRM) Gleaning Project and EarthWorks, a social action/environmental group of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Northern Chautauqua County, students in the course will address local energy, food and water issues.
With these partners, students will organize, publicize and participate in three major events: a community environmental film festival, a Lake Erie beach cleanup, and a community compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb giveaway.
Students will also write “mini grants” to the course instructor to obtain rain barrels and compost bins for seven of the CCRM’s Gleaning Project community gardens. The ultimate goal of the joint projects is to have a direct and positive impact on the lives of more than 5,000 Chautauqua County residents.
In addition to teaching the students valuable non-profit sector and social change writing skills, the course is designed to promote greater collaboration between the local community and the campus in the area of sustainability, while encouraging student civic engagement. The design of the course, Jarvis explains, “was an attempt to encapsulate the mission of SUNY Fredonia’s FACE Center, which seeks to build campus and community connections in the areas of civic engagement, service learning, sustainability, and community-based research.”
Students currently enrolled in the class expressed their excitement about the community partnerships. Jenny Mirabella, a junior English and public relations double major remarked, “This course is perhaps more valuable than most courses at SUNY Fredonia; not only does it strive to immediately improve lives in the community, but it also empowers the individuals taking the course.”
Senior English major Catherine Colmerauer echoed these sentiments. “I am thrilled to be a participant in this course,” she said. “It feels good to walk out of a class knowing that I will have made a positive impact on my community. For what feels like the first time in a classroom setting, my skills are being tested in ‘real-world’ situations. I am getting a taste for the career paths I can take when I am out of college.”
The direct impact these partnerships will have on the lives of county residents is in keeping with the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo’s commitment to making grants that will have a maximum positive impact on Western New York. The “Writing, Sustainability, and Social Change: 18/5,000” project addresses one of the Foundation’s four focus areas: Enhancing and Leveraging Significant Natural, Historic and Architectural Resources. In particular, Jarvis’ grant addresses a key Foundation goal of building community understanding and capacity for environmental stewardship (protection, restoration, management, awareness and advocacy).
The course projects were also designed to complement the numerous campus and community “Earth Week” activities, taking place April 15 - 25. To learn more about Earth Week at SUNY Fredonia, visit www.fredonia.edu/gogreen/earthweek.
