Good for Farmers, Good for Finals!

Here at St. Mary's College of Maryland this semester, tons of rad stuff has been going down -- we just met with our college president and got her to sign onto the President's Climate Commitment (finally, whew, now that we've already fulfilled most of the requirements for it!). We're in the ongoing process of developing a Sustainability Strategic Plan, and just submitted a mission statement outlining our goals and objectives for the near future.

One of our main local campaigns at the moment is to switch our on-campus coffee shops from selling Starbucks to Equal Exchange 100% fair trade coffee. Equal Exchange buys only sustainably grown coffee from fairly compensated small farmers, as opposed to Starbucks (whose "Fair Trade Blend" is only about 10% fair trade). We've been toting around coffee machines to trustee meetings, community and student events, offering free EE coffee samples and building support for the campaign in time to hopefully make the switch over the summer.

We also are distributing free Chicobags (reusable bags that fit onto a keychain, to reduce plastic bag consumption) to every incoming freshman at orientation next year, and working on distributing reusable recycled-material coffee cups to students.

On Fossil Fools Day, we had a bike-powered generator powering Daft Punk on an iPod, creating an outdoor techno dance party on the campus center patio.