Sustainability Heroes: July

Jason Von Kundra, Sustainability Intern

by Alex Tyson

July 2011

For many young activists, the environmental movement is something they get involved with in their late teens. While they may have joined environmental groups in high school, the transition to becoming a full-fledged environmentalist usually doesn’t occur until college. This was not the case for Jason Von-Kundra.

Jason was born on a fall day in Fairfax, Virginia to a mother who currently teaches classes in Southwest Virginia about Permaculture, a principled design system for ecological living which strives to integrate ecologically sustainable qualities into our individual lives and communities. To say Jason was conscious of the environment at a young age would be something of an understatement. In fact, Jason credits childhood experiences for leading him to his current work. While other kids traveled outside armed with their My Little Pony or Power Rangers backpacks, Jason brought a different kind of bag: a recycling one. As Jason put it, “I was raised to recycle. Whenever we went to the mall, my mom would make us take our recycling bags. We would just carry them around.” And carry he did. No matter whether Jason was in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, where he attended high school, or back in Fairfax, Jason has always been passionate about environmental protection.

When Jason arrived at Mason after transferring from Northern Virginia Community College, Jason initially thought he would major in physics After some time he considered geology. Yet, his zeal for environmental protection couldn’t be satiated. As Jason noted, “My background is looking at the science of the issue.” Jason felt that his penchant for logical reasoning would be advantageous when studying environmental science. His sharply analytical mind was noticed; Jason was elected co-chair of the Environmental Action Group (EAG) after just one semester in Fall 2009. Within his first week in the club, Jason jumped at the opportunity to help organize Virginia Powershift, a conference for students and youth that informed students about pressing environmental and social justice issues. Since then, Jason has hardly slowed down. After Powershift, Jason helped lead a sustainable food campaign on campus. As part of the campaign, Jason met with dining staff and personnel, and lobbied dining services to include more vegetarian and vegan options on campus. His efforts on behalf of the EAG have helped steer dining services to lay groundwork for the establishment a new vegetarian restaurant on campus.

In addition to his previous achievements, Jason’s biggest accomplishment has just been made public. After lobbying the administration for nearly three years, the EAG helped pass the Patriot Green Fund. The Patriot Green Fund came about after students at Mason began to develop a strong interest in raising additional funds to enable Mason to move ahead in executing projects to reduce Mason’ greenhouse gas emissions. Students proposed the Patriot Green Fund, which was to assess a small fee per student to support this desire. The administration agreed with the students that more funding was needed, and requested the creation of a pilot for the Patriot Green Fund. As of July 1, 2011, the Budget and Planning Committee will provide $100,000 per year to accelerate our ability to achieve our goals outlined in CAP. This fund will significantly expand efforts to bring Mason into the sustainable future that faculty, students and President Merten are calling for, while allowing students to play a direct and important role in deciding which projects will be funded.

To Jason, the establishment of the fund signifies coming a step closer to his vision of Mason in the future. According to Jason, “ My favorite things about Mason are the incredible community of passionate students, faculty, and staff that are working hard to create positive social change, for the environment and other issues.” To him, the PGF and the community that helped pass it are integral to helping create a sustainable Mason. Jason states, “ I want to make Mason sustainable in a way where we have a close-loop system. {By} actually using the gardens on campus. Providing the food in cafeterias. Composting it down, using the soil to fertilize plants so we can provide our needs on our own.”

As a full-time student who has consistently worked throughout college (presently at the Office of Sustainability), one might wonder how Jason manages to do so much. Jason asserts that his tireless work ethic comes from an intrinsic force within, and a particular visit to coalfields in Appalachia. When defining the moment in his life that changed his outlook most significantly, Jason quips “One of the most important moments of my life was going out to climate ground zero, the Appalachian coal fields plagued with mountaintop removal. There I made the decision that I will do whatever it takes to protect our planet and its inhabitants.” This shocking vision of environmental degradation fueled Jason’s fire. Jason states, “I’m motivated to preserve the planet for future generations. We’re taught to pick up after ourselves. But we haven’t been doing that. We’re handing a planet to the next generation that isn’t in the same condition it is now. Why I do what I do is to enable future generations to have an inhabitable, clean, safe planet to live on. Your family is the most important thing in the world. I want to have kids one day. I think they deserve the same things what I was given.”

Farmers market future in question

from Broadside http://broadsideonline.com/2011/04/25/farmers-market-future-in-question-3501/

By Jeffrey Giorgi / Asst. News Editor

While the farmer’s market is not currently going to appear at Mason, there is a possibilty that it will return in the future. File photo

On Earth Day 2009, amidst blue skies, rain and even hail, the farmers market made its debut at George Mason University. Students and faculty were able to buy organic fruits, vegetables and various all-natural foods. Since then, the market has moved around campus, but now, they may be without a home for the future.

“We were only active for about a month before the students left,” said Jean Janssen, president of Smart Markets Inc. of the farmers market’s first appearance at Mason. “They put us in Lot K for the summer where we did very, very poorly. We didn’t have any way of letting the community know we were there because they wouldn’t let us put any signs up.”

For Mark Kraner, executive director of retail operations at Mason, the handling of the farmers market was a matter of logistics.

“One of the things we asked was for it to be focused toward the people on our campus. Trying to bring more bodies onto our campus that are not a part of [the Mason community] is not always the best thing to do,” Kraner said. “We weren’t trying to get the neighborhood to come in, especially since there are two farmers markets in Fairfax.”

Many of the vendors were hesitant to come back after the initial outing because of poor profits. But in fall 2009, the farmers market reappeared on the North Plaza, a spot that, while better, still had problems.

“Almost every week when we arrived, there was something set up,” Janssen said. “We weren’t plugged into the life of the university enough to know what was happening in the plaza.”

The market left Mason in October 2009 after a successful and stressful two months.

“Everyone could see the potential to do well,” Janssen said. “It was just a matter of managing it. Those two months all the vendors could see a potential profit.”

The market was supposed to reappear in spring 2010 but more issues arose and the re-opening was delayed.

“We decided not to open until last fall and then it would be a year-round market,” Janssen said.

So the market made its return, this time just outside of Southside. With a plan to remain on campus year round, things looked bright for the future of the market.

“We came to an agreement and came up with a space-use agreement for this year,” Kraner said. “[Janssen’s] request was thatthey not be located on the plaza and we worked out a space for it, and it was by Southside. It was a mutual agreement as to location. She chose the day and time which she thought would be best.”

However, what looked good on paper did not pan out, and a drop in profits ultimately caused the market to close again.

“We just didn’t get the foot traffic,” Janssen said. “On this campus you don’t have students crossing through large parts of the campus throughout the day. They park and go straight to their classes, and foot traffic was so bad that all our vendors dropped out.”

Janssen added that the process was part of the problem.

“If we were a part of the university where we worked with a committee, or a working group, we would be hearing the voices that tell us that location is a bad idea,” Janssen said.

Only speaking with one part of a community can make planning difficult and a lack of community can create problems where there might not otherwise be any if multiple factions were involved, Janssen said.

“That is why I’ve always felt we lost the opportunity to do on this campus what other markets are doing on other college campuses,” Janssen said.
On Thursday at 1 p.m. a meeting will be held to discuss the farmer’s market at Mason.

“We’re going to be looking at the market in general,” said Dan Waxman, professional and alumni development manager. “Things like a desire to have a market here on campus and if the community will want it because there is an express interest from people on campus.”

Whether the farmers market will return remains undetermined.

“Why [Janssen] hasn’t come back this spring, I’ll be honest,” Kraner said. “I have sent her a letter asking when she’s going to return and she has not replied so I can’t answer the question, because she hasn’t communicated that to me.”

The Prince William campus hosts a successful farmers market on Thursdays. Prince William focuses on attracting the surrounding communities, and Mason focuses solely on drawing its students and staff.

“When you think about it logically, it may not be the best thing for a farmers market,” Kraner said. “That’s what we think is happening, but we don’t know for a fact.”

But according to Janssen, the potential for return still remains, under the right circumstances.

“We wouldn’t try to come back in the summer unless … you actually get the Skins here,” Janssen said. “And if the traffic circle is no longer in need of construction … I don’t see why we can’t just set up for three hours a day.”

Some feel the market has provided the opportunity for students to have a healthier diet and to help the community.

“Our farmers market has provided a great addition for university life here at Mason and served as another resource for learning about the planet and the value of food,” Waxman said.

Bike to Mason Day a success

from Broadside 4/25/2011 http://broadsideonline.com/2011/04/25/bike-to-mason-day-a-success-3508/

Bike to Mason Day a success

By Nathan Dorfman / Staff Writer

Mason has hosted a 5k for Victims’ Rights Week for the past 15 years. Photo by Gregory Connolly

About 100 students, faculty, staff and community members traveled via bicycle to George Mason University in celebration of Bike to Mason Day on Thursday.

Participants biked to Mason for numerous reasons.

“It’s a great stress relief,” said Nancy Bagwell of Arlington. “I’ve been on a bike since I was 6 and I’ve never stopped riding. My 68th birthday is coming up next month.”

For others, money played into their decision.

“Gas is almost $4 a gallon, but it didn’t cost me anything to get here today,” said Rick Holt, a human resources trainer at Mason and member of the Mason Bike Advocate Council. “I get my workout right there in two hours and have more energy.”

By biking, you save money and help the environment at the same time, Holt said.

“I support the campus efforts for this,” said Bethany Usher, associate director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Mason. “We biked on a multi-use path from Burke Centre.”

The Washington region hosted a Bike to Work Day for a long time, but it always fell on Mason’s commencement weekend, said Josh Cantor, director of Mason Parking and Transportation. For this reason, Mason started its own Bike to Mason Day in 2007.

The League of American Bicyclists has named Mason a bicycle-friendly university. Mason earned this status through five E’s: engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement and evaluation, Holt said.

Cantor said he seeks to make biking a more accessible means of commuting to Mason, by adding bike lanes, racks and shelters around campus.

Students interested in biking can get involved with the on-campus Bike Village program, which repairs bicycles and provides bicycles at a reasonable price.
“I hardly ever bike on the road with cars,” said Bagwell, who primarily cycles on trails and sidewalks. “There are plenty of trails around here.”

Commuters can also use a multi-modal approach by biking part of the way and then taking a shuttle or the Metro.

A lot of people think they cannot bike to campus, but doing it once a week, or even once a month, is more reasonable and more impactful than people realize, Cantor said.

“It’s not an all-or-nothing proposition,” Cantor said.

The transportation office is also looking for a bike intern, Cantor said.

Faculty and staff interested in biking can join the Bicycle Commuter Benefit Program. Members of the program can earn two free parking passes from the transportation office and a $20 voucher for use at local bike shops.

The Bicycle Commuter Benefit Program may be available to students in the future.

“Biking is a continual effort and part of a larger transportation program,” Cantor said.

The transportation program at Mason, which also incorporates shuttles, carpooling and walking, discourages driving alone.
“We’re always open to feedback,” Cantor said.

For more information, you can visit transportation.gmu.edu

Mason Groups Work Together to Promote Sustainable Food: Multiple Events On The Table

By Nya Jackson

While most students are excited about sharing a  Thanksgiving meal with their family or friends, Mason’s agriART class and the Environmental Action Group (EAG) are more concerned with educating students about how that home cooked meal is sourced. The EAG is co-hosting a Vegan Thanksgiving Potluck Dinner this Thursday, November 18th with Mason’s Animal Rights Collective. The dinner will be in the Potomac Heights Kitchen and Dining Area from 5:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. The agriART class is hosting Screens and Greens, a film and local food festival, Friday November 19th in the School of Art Building, Room 1007 from 4:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m.

The EAG will be enjoying an environmentally friendly Thanksgiving dinner free of any animal products. Jason Von Kundra, co-chair of the EAG, “encourages non-vegans to come and taste how delicious vegan food is”. The EAG will be collecting donations for Farm Sanctuary who “works to protect farm animals from cruelty, inspire change in the way society views and treats farm animals, and promote compassionate vegan living.” For every $30 donated, Farm Sanctuary is able to rescue and rehabilitate one turkey. While event attendees are encouraged to donate, it is not required.

The EAG’s Facebook event page for the Vegan Thanksgiving Potluck Dinner encourages students to “find out why vegan food is better for the environment” and provides a link to the Vegan Outreach website. According to David Brubaker, PhD, at the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins University, “the way that we breed animals for food is a threat to the planet. It pollutes our environment while consuming huge amounts of water, grain, petroleum, pesticides and drugs. The results are disastrous.” The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates in Notes from Underground that “a single dairy cow produces about 120 pounds of wet manure per day, which is equivalent to the waste produced by 20–40 people.”

To learn more about the environmental impact of consuming meat visit the Vegan Outreach website; to taste home-cooked vegan food stop by the EAG’s Vegan Thanksgiving Potluck Dinner.

The agriArt class at Mason, which explores the connection between art and agriculture, will be showing two movies during their film and local food festival on Friday. The first movie is Food Inc, an Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Feature examining the American food industry that is largely hidden from consumers. The second film featured is Dirt! which examines the relationship between humans and ‘living dirt’. Shanna Carvell, an agriART student, stated the goal of the event is to, “inform participants of American food culture and world ecology involving food.”  Part of the event is a project for the agriART class where they are providing all local food for a family style pot-luck. While most advocates of local food define local as within a 200 mile radius, the agriARTclass stipulates that ingredients for the dinner must come within a 100 mile radius from campus.

To aid students in finding local ingredients for their dishes the agriART class has “contacted local farms in the area for produce, dairy and meat and are in the process of making orders”. They are also mapping where the ingredients in all of the dishes came from for participants in the film festival to show students that it is possible to eat local and still enjoy some of their favorite foods. The first feature, Food Inc., will begin at 4:00 p.m. The family style dinner will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the First Floor Lobby. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own utensils and plates to cut down on waste. The second feature, Dirt! will begin at 7pm.

The event is being sponsored by the agriART class, the GMU Organic Garden Association, Mason’s Sustainability Office, and SOA Green. For more information please contact Shanna Carvell at scarvell@gmu.edu.

Mason Campus Garden Consortium

Last Thursday members from the three organic gardens on campus, the Mason Organic Garden, SoA Green Garden, and the Child Development Center Garden, met to discuss pooling their resources to strengthen sustainable gardening efforts on campus. The meeting was organized by the Office of Sustainability Project Specialist, Danielle Wyman, who also manages the Mason Organic Garden behind Potomac Heights Student Apartments. Attendees included Sustainability Coordinator Lenna Storm, AgriArt Professor Mark Cooley, Auxiliary Enterprises Project Manager Daniel Waxman, Child Development Center (CDC) Director Tina Morris, CDC Lead Teacher and Garden Operations Manager Dorothea Tyree, Mason Organic Garden members Amanda Wall, Cassondra Coleman, and Nya Jackson, and SoA Green Garden members Justin Raphael Roykovich, Vina Sananikone, and Liz Edwards.

One of the common concerns discussed among the three gardens was summer maintenance. Wyman noted that the Mason Organic Garden struggled with finding enough volunteers to manage the garden over the summer and had to hire former Mason Organic Garden member, Yuka Taylor, to assist with daily maintenance. The SoA Green garden expressed similar concerns. “I was here last summer and managed the garden but all of the SoA Green leadership will be graduating making volunteer recruitment or sharing important” said Roykovich.

Lenna Storm, the Campus Sustainability Coordinator suggested “maintenance free summer planting”. If we can incorporate permaculture principles into the gardens it will minimize the daily maintenance and we won’t need as much volunteer labor which is difficult to find during the summer. Cooley agreed it was important to get more students involved in the gardens but believes there are shortcomings with the organizations created to manage the gardens.

Eventually the leaders of these groups graduate and there’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to recruit more members. “We need to work the gardens into the curriculum” stated Cooley. Cooley also suggested following the community garden structure where members of the Mason community pay for plots during the summer and are responsible for maintaining the plots and entitled to the produce harvested. Wyman supported this idea saying a few Resident Advisors (RA’s) had expressed interest in garden plots. While no decision was made regarding summer garden maintenance the discussion did get the group thinking ahead about summer plans.

The group also discussed sharing funding among the three gardens. In April the Mason Organic Garden received a $5,000 grant from Transurban-Fluor which expired November 1st. Wyman expressed the difficulty she expressed with spending the grant. “It’s hard when you’re used to operating with no money and then you have $5,000 to spend. $5,000 is a lot for one garden.” said Wyman. SoA Green was more than happy to help with spending money. “We don’t have any money. We can definitely use some” said Sananikone. The CDC is also interested in sharing grant money depending on the stipulations from the grant making organization.

Lastly the group discussed the name of the Mason Organic Garden. Waxman noted that since all three gardens don’t use pesticides or other chemicals they’re all organic and suggested the Mason Organic Garden change its name to the Potomac Heights Garden. Mason Organic Garden manager, Danielle Wyman and member Nya Jackson agreed. Jackson told Waxman she would get back to him with a final decision after she spoke to fellow garden members and got their approval.

The Mason Campus Garden Consortium ,which encompasses the three gardens present at the meeting, have agreed to meet again in late February to begin planning for the 2011 growing season. The Mason Organic Garden will organize the meeting. In addition to the Mason Campus Garden Consortium, there are other efforts on campus to collaborate and combine efforts. This Monday the Office of Sustainability is hosting a Sustainability Lunch and Learn to bring Mason students, faculty, and staff together to discuss how to promote sustainability at Mason. If successful the Office of Sustainability is looking to make it a weekly occurrence. The Sustainability Lunch and Learn will take place in the Paul Robeson Room in the Johnson Center from 12pm-1pm. For more information please contact the Office of Sustainability Outreach Coordinator, Colin Bennett, at cbennet6@gmu.edu.

For more information about the Mason Campus Garden Consortium please contact Sustainability Projects Specialist, Danielle Wyman, at dwyman@gmu.edu.