Have some questions? Got some creative ideas? Don’t hesitate to send us an email at ssw.sustainability@nyu.edu !

See you on the 16th!

I hope everyone had an awesome summer! Sustainable Silver is back in action for the 2010-2011 school year, and it was so great meeting many new members and students at the orientation activity fair! Those of you who signed up on our mailing list will be receiving information about meetings and events in the near future. Lots of changes are in action, but I just wanted to update the blog to say that our first event will be:

Governor’s Island Bike Ride

Friday, September 10th, 10am-2pm

Interested in seeing New York City from a whole different point of view? Come ride bikes with us on Governor’s Island! Meet in front of 1WSN (the Social Work building) at 10am promptly, and we will ride/take the train/take the ferry to the island! Renting bikes is free on Fridays, so even if you don’t own your own bike you can still come with! We will supply the snacks, just make sure you bring some water to drink because it will probably be warm out.

To attend this event you MUST RSVP here: http://www.nyu.edu/rsvp/event.php?e_id=2866

Questions? Email Ali at ali.hartstein@gmail.com or the general Sustainable Silver email at ssw.sustainability@nyu.edu !

If you can’t make it to the bike ride, don’t worry – we have a welcome meeting in the works, and many fun events for this semester being planned!

Hope to see you soon,

Leanne

First of all, as you can see our ssw.sustainability@nyu.edu email address is back in action.  Please use this address to get in touch with us! We’re very excited to be co-sponsoring a couple of upcoming events, and we hope you’ll join us at one or both of them.  A couple of other announcements too:

1. Books through Bars Solidarity Event – 11/20, 7pm
2. Swip Swap and Food Inc. Screening — 11/24, 6:30 (Swip Swap); 7:45 (Food Inc.)
3. NYU Sustainability Task Force Finance Working Group
4. Down by the River: Race and Environmental Justice Organizing and Policy Conference @ the New School, 11/20

NYU Sustainability Task Force Finance Working Group
Interested in working on ways to help NYU promote environmental and social justice on campus? The Finance Working Group would implement tools such as a revolving loan fund, preferential investment, cost-benefit analysis and proxy voting as a way to impact sustainability on our campus and in the wider community.  If you’re interested, please contact Anna Smukowski at als516@nyu.edu.

Down by the River: Race and Environmental Justice Organizing and Policy Conference @ the New School, 11/20
Not a Sustainable Silver event, but something you all might be interested in: “Whether responding to harsh effects of toxic-dumping in Birmingham, Bronzeville or Brooklyn, activists, community members, and politicians have often regarded race and ethnicity as crucial factors in the research and analysis produced to combat unjust environmental practices. In light of these efforts, Eugene Lang College’s Ethnicity and Race Program presents Down By The River: An Undergraduate Symposium on Race and Environmental Justice Organizing and Policy.”

This year has gotten off to a great start for Sustainable Silver, with three new leaders, two upcoming events, and a whole lot of excitement.  Keep reading for information on:

1) Upcoming events — City Biking workshop 10/27 8pm; East New York Farms volunteer day 11/7
2) New meeting times — Thursdays at 5pm in the student lounge
3) New leaders
4) Staying in the loop/contact information

1) We’re very excited about our two fast-approaching fall events:

On Tuesday, October 27 at 8:00pm we’ll be hosting a City Biking workshop in the Parlor of the School of Social Work.  The workshop will cover everything you need to know about biking in New York City, from choosing the right lock to riding safely to fun rides to take on the weekends.  Plus, refreshments will be served! Please RSVP by emailing us at ssw.sustainability@nyu.edu with “Bike Workshop” in the subject line.  

Then, on Saturday, November 7, we’ll be taking a volunteer trip out to East New York Farms, and urban farm and community-based organization in, guess where, East New York.  We’ll have a chance to get our hands dirty on their farm, check out their farmers’ market, and learn about their awesome community organizing and youth empowerment work.  Please RSVP by emailing us at ssw.sustainability@nyu.edu with “East New York Farms” in the subject line.  

2) New Meeting Times

We’re now going to be meeting every other Thursday at 5:00pm in the School of Social Work Student lounge, with more meetings as needed.  Our meetings for the remainder of the fall semester will be held on: 
10/22, 11/5, 11/19, 12/3, and 12/17.

3) New leaders

We now have three new graduate leaders, Leanne Bazzetta, Ali Hartstein, and Jessica Margulies — yay! They are awesome! Jenny and Shane are also still involved, of course.  

4) Staying in the loop

The email address for our group is ssw.sustainability@nyu.edu — use this to contact us about anything at all, and to be added to our mailing list if you’re not already!  Also, join our Facebook group for events and to communicate with other Sustainable Silver members.

Finally, we’ve mentioned before the NYU Green Arch Initiative, a Google group that we highly recommend anyone join who wants to stay updated about different sustainability happenings at NYU and in the city.  

1) Bicycling Workshop

Leanne, one of our new members, expressed interest in spearheading a bicycling workshop for SSSW students on city biking safety, fun trips, bike repair, etc.  She’s looking into some different community groups to partner with, and we’ll talk more about this at our next meeting.  

2) Volunteering at East NY Farms

It seemed like getting involved with community gardens was a huge priority for a lot of our new members, so we’re going to go out to East New York Farms at some point this fall for one of their volunteer days!  Shane is spearheading this, and while nothing is set in stone yet, tentatively put aside either October 17 or November 7.

3) Setting up a Books through Bars Collection box

Books Through Bars is an organization that sends quality books to prisoners.  They used to have a collection box at NYU, but it would fill up too quickly and there was no one around to sort the books and take them over to Books through Bars.  That’s where Sustainable Silver comes in — we’re hoping to partner with the GSA and Books Through Bars to set up a collection box  in the School of Social Work, and have members of our group take it over to their library in Brooklyn when it fills up.  

4) Gardening workshops in Spring

Sustainable Silver seems to be a club of garden enthusiasts — winter hasn’t even come but we’re already looking forward to spring.  Leanne had the idea of holding a gardening workshop or a series of gardening workshops in February and/or March to set the School of Social Work off container gardening as soon as the ground turns soft.  We think that between her and Jenny, we should be able to pull off something great.

5) Collaborating with local schools on environmental education

Hayley, a new member (from the undergrad program!) had the great idea of partnering with local schools to teach the students there about the environment.  She’s going to look into similar programs, and talk to us more about the idea next meeting.  

NOTES:

1) America’s Greenest Campus Competition

NYU is participating in the America’s Greenest Campus competition, and the school with the most participants signed up will win $5000.  Help NYU win by signing up here, and for extra points log-on and pledge to reduce your carbon footprint.  

2) Timing

We had originally planned to hold our meetings on Monday nights, but it sounds like this timing is difficult for some people. If you are interested in attending our meetings, please fill out this Doodle poll.

Hope to see you at our next meeting — Monday, September 28, at 7:30pm in the Parlor!

Jenny’s research would not only be an incredible resource for the urban agriculture, food security, and environmental justice movements, it would also highlight important and potentially powerful but as yet unexplored area of focus for the social work profession.  We are so happy that NYU’s School of Social Work is recognizing the important connection between the environment and social welfare by giving Jenny this award!

One of the most interesting parts of the discussion came when the three Shame on You youth producers were telling us about their continued work with the Educational Video Center, the organization that coordinated the production of the documentary.  One of them, Anna, is presently working on a documentary about adolescent depression in communities of color.  When asked about her motivation for making a movie about that issue, she very frankly responded that she found it to be more important and have a larger social impact than a movie like Shame on You, because “if someone sees a movie like that, it can change their life right then,” whereas a movie like Shame on You, which deals with an issue that is broader and less directly felt, “they might recycle for a few weeks but it doesn’t really change much.”  We talked about how different approaches are needed to address different sorts of social problems: with something like depression, information can make all the difference int he world, and a movie might very well make a significant difference in someone’s life.  However, with an issue like environmental degradation and its disproportionate impact on marginalized populations, a movie can only be one small part of a multifaceted approach to changing consumption habits and empowering community members to become activists.  I asked Anna what she thought needed to go along with awareness in order for change to actually happen on this issue; she pointed first to the fact that locally-grown, sustainably- and ethically-produced food is sometimes far more expensive than, say, McDonalds — especially in low-income communities.  She also highlighted the fact that it’s not that people don’t know how to make healthy, nutritious food, they simply do not have time.

Thanks again to everyone who helped make this event a success!!