Projects | Mysite

Our Current Projects.

While we work on many projects throughout the year, there are a few that take up the majority of our time. These are the projects that we feel are extremely important are currently focusing our efforts towards them.

Campus Rain Garden Restoration

Since the spring of 2018, we have been working on restoring the campus rain garden. The garden was created to catch and filter runoff from several parking lots nearby. However, since it's creation it had largely been left to nature and had filled in with sediment and been overrun with weeds. Over the course of five workdays, we removed all the vegetation, reworked the dirt to make the garden deeper, and put six truckloads of rocks in the area to help filter the runoff. These workdays were accomplished with twenty-eight volunteers who completed a total of 126 community service hours. Our next workday will be continuing to deepen the basin and make the sides higher so it can hold more water without overflowing. We are also currently working on creating a finalized layout of the garden and securing funds to purchase seeds and plants.

Annual Earth Day Celebration

Every year, YESS hosts the Earth Day Celebration on campus. For this event, we invite local environmental groups to set up a table to inform students on opportunities they have to make a positive impact. These groups also show students the importance of sustainability. We also have a raffle fundraiser and giveaways with donated items to show students items they can use in their daily lives to decrease their negative environmental impacts. This event is a great opportunity to educate students on the impacts of their actions and show them ways they can live greener lives. Next year is the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day and we are planning a big event! If you'd like to be involved, send us a message!

Growth in the Greenhouse

We have been putting a lot of work into the campus green house recently! We have been experimenting with using hydroponics and propagating various plants. In addition to growing plants, we have also organized the storage rooms and have been working on cleaning up our section. Next year, we have several projects that will require us to use the space to grow plants for various community garden projects. To do this, we are planning on experimenting with creating an automated watering system.