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.

More Sustainable Foods at Mason

Last Thursday the Environmental Action Group’s Sustainable Foods Working Group met with Mason Dining Services senior administration to discuss the use of more local, sustainable foods in Mason dining facilities. The group met with Sodexo Resident District Manager Denise Ammaccapane, Executive Campus Chef Peter Schoebel, and Mason Dining’s Dietian Lois Durant. The student lead group consisted of Environmental Action Group members Darius Salimi and Jason Von Kundra, GMU Organic Garden Association member Nya Jackson, and Sustainability Projects Specialist Danielle Wyman. The delegation claimed to be representing over three hundred and fifty members of the Environmental Action Group.

The largest concern of the student lead delegation was the lack of local, organic produce in Mason’s dining services. Executive Campus Chef Peter Schoebel responded to student concerns by stating that he does use local produce, when available, but “we [the students] just don’t know it”. Keany Produce Company, Mason’s produce provider, provides local fruits and vegetables by default when they are available. Due to Schoebel’s time limitations he stated that “I don’t have the time to go through the produce order list and create labels for which food is local”. The Sustainable Food Working Group will be working with two service learners, appointed to work with Dining Services, to assist with creating local food labels to be prominently displayed at Mason Dining facilities to make the Mason community aware of which foods and ingredients are being sourced locally. Denise Ammaccapane, Sodexo Resident District Manager, has also volunteered her marketing student interns, to help with designing labels for locally sourced produce.

Signs for locally sourced produce wasn’t the only labeling issue discussed at the meeting. Environmental Action Group Co-chair, Jason Von Kundra, who is a vegan, expressed his discontent with the prominent labeling of vegan dishes at Southside. Currently, there is a binder with the list of ingredients that are present in dishes but Von Kundra doesn’t think this current system of labeling is convenient. “The list of ingredients should be directly in front of the dishes they correspond to not over in a corner somewhere” said Von Kundra. The Sustainable Foods Working Group also wasn’t satisfied with the current symbols used to identify gluten free dishes, and dishes containing soy, dairy, peanuts, and other ingredients students might possibly be allergic to. The student group will be working with Mason Dining’s Dietian Lois Durant, who is directly employed by Sodexo, to improve the allergy symbols used. Schoebel also claims to be working with Mason’s IT department to fix the labeling glitches.

The conversion of George’s to a vegetarian restaurant was also discussed during the meeting. Ammacaccapane said converting George’s to a vegetarian restaurant had been discussed in the past but there wasn’t enough support for the restaurant. Salimi expressed the need for a vegetarian restaurant on campus. “It’s crazy that I pay $9 to get into Southside to eat without a meal plan and only have one or two vegetarian options available to me. I want the same number of food options as non vegetarians” said Salimi. Ammacaccapane, Schobel, and Durant seemed open to the idea but asked for more information from the student group including where they would like to have a vegetarian restaurant on campus, what the menu and staffing would look like, and what students are willing to pay for a meal. Schoebel volunteered to do a cost analysis of a vegetarian restaurant to see if it is feasible.

Lastly the group discussed the use of garden produce in Southside. Last month the Organic Garden Association donated over 10 pounds of basil to Southside for them to use for their menu that day. The basil wasn’t used in the menu that day. Schobel stated that if the produce from the garden is to be used in Southside he needs advance notice of produce available from the garden that he can use in the next week or two. He also suggested that the Organic Garden Association consider using the garden produce in other dining facilities that have more flexibility in their menus since they are dealing with a lesser volume of customers.

The group will be meeting again in two weeks to discuss their progress and further areas where they can work together. Some members of the Sustainable Foods Working Group seemed optimistic after their meeting. Danielle Wyman, Office of Sustainability Projects Specialist, expressed her excitement after the meeting. “I feel very excited and encouraged that Sodexo seems ready to really move forward with what we all are asking for!” Others have chosen to wait until after some results have been seen to call the meeting a success. Von Kundra of the EAG had this to add. “At the 2010 Longwood Sustainability Conference I was impressed with all the sustainable initiatives Aramark, one of Sodexo’s biggest competitors, is doing at Longwood University. I was even more impressed when I learned that Longwood does not have any environmental group. At GMU, our environmental group has presented the issue and the ball is the hands of Mason Dining and Sodexo to make changes here on campus. I can’t consider [the meeting] a success until we see some changes made.”

If you are interested in learning more about the Sustainable Foods Campaign please contact the Environmental Action Group at gmueag@gmail.com