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Whitworth students, faculty and staff were invited to learn more about sustainability through the sustainability challenge which took place last week.
Arend hall won the challenge and will have the choice of a formal dinner hosted by Bill Robinson, a pizza party during finals week or a 1,000 dollar donation to Second Harvest food bank from Sodexo in honor of the winners. The poster contest was won by senior Hanna Griffing from the Stewart and the Village team, and the YouTube video contest was won by a group of students from Arend.
Jim O’Brien, Sodexo general manager and member of the sustainability committee, said he felt participation in the event was good.
“We had about 40 to 70 kids who signed in to each Prime Time, but as far as students who are actively involved we would have about a dozen each night,” O’Brien said.
The games were one of the more engaging parts of the program for students, he said.
“I think there were quite a few opportunities for students to go, ‘wow, I didn’t know that it takes 2500 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef’ or how many billions and billions of plastic bottles are thrown away each year, so these kind of facts are what I see as the most important part,” he said.
Freshman Amanda Brodhag of Arend was surprised to learn that it is better to get plastic than paper bags at the grocery store, though bringing your own reusable bags is better than either.
“It’s always interesting to hear about what’s going on,” she said.
Greg Orwig, director of communications and also a member of the sustainability committee, hopes that most people came into contact with at least a part of the challenge.
“I hope that this will have caused [students] to reflect a lit bit on the role each of us can play individually on making the camps and the world more sustainable,” Orwig said. “It boils down to everyone being willing to think beyond themselves and their immediate needs and desires to the other people currently who are affected by the choices we make and future generations.”
Orwig said he wants to hear ideas from students who are interested in being involved in the spring challenge in order to make the event even more successful.
Speaking of the planning of this fall’s challenge, Orwig said that he wanted to highlight O’Brien’s “tremendous leadership, commitment and involvement in the challenge.” O’Brien took the lead on working with RDs and RAs on Prime Times and was at each of them.
Both Orwig and O’Brien said getting people to think about the environment was an important part of the challenge.
“The main intent was to bring sustainability issues to the forefront in the fall to help people be more sustainable the whole year,” O’Brien said. “I’m hoping that people start developing those kinds of habits.”
Contact Evanne Montoya at evanne.montoya@whitworthian.com.
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