Green Org Spotlight: Green GW
Lucy Hummer
GreenGW is a community-minded organization that focuses on sustainable education and lifestyles. Each month, GreenGW has a different theme, each of which comes from the broad spectrum of interests in which being ‘green’ applies. This could mean anything from conservation to water to environmental justice. GreenGW does this for a variety of reasons. The primary goal is to make sure that they have something through the year that is of interest for everyone. Green meets almost every single week, so there is definitely opportunity to address an extremely broad scope of topics. Ultimately, throughout the academic year, GreenGW is able to provide a catalyst/resources/education/enthusiasm about being environmentally conscious on a variety of scales.
I personally find it very inspiring how many green organizations there are on campus. They all reach a different audience and have a different mission statement, but ultimately all have the same overarching desire to make GW students (and GW at large) a part of a more sustainable institution.
Green operates with two slogans. The first of which is “think global, act local”. This is fairly intuitive, and essentially means how can we as individuals have an impact on the world at large. Green straddles the divide between institutional change and lifestyle change and acknowledges that both are super important! Our second, and favored, slogan is “sustainability is sexy”. This one is obviously more light-hearted and casual, and we really feel like it encompasses the heart of the organization. At the end of the day, Green members just love to hang out with one another and talk about things that we are passionate about and inspire one another.
This semester (Fall 2018), we meet on Monday nights, usually at 7pm. However, Green often has special events and cosponsored programming that happens at different times! Upcoming in October, for example, we are working with other GW orgs, DC Fair Food and even someone from the UN Association on different cool things (check our Facebook page or sign up for our weekly email newsletter if you want to come join). Looking ahead, we have other exciting annual events in the works as well. A succulent sale around Valentine’s Day, Conscious College Road Tour, field trips and our Trashion Show are just a few. Next week is Fall Break, and Indigenous Peoples’ Day falls on our usual meeting day. That means our next meeting is October 15th! We’ll be having a general body meeting in District House 205 at 7, and we’ll be talking about climate change communication, etc. Come out if that’s up your alley!
