Exonians Participate in Environmental Service Work
The Exeter community volunteered during Green Apple Day on Sunday, a worldwide annual day of service dedicated to sustainability. This is Exeter’s fourth year participating in the event, and environmental clubs hosted workshops and projects for volunteers to participate in.
The US Green Building Council’s Center for Green Schools initiated the global movement in 2012, hoping to inspire children, students and their instructors to participate in creating a healthier and safer learning environment for themselves. “When we educate a child, we choose the future we hope he or she creates,” the group stated in their mission. “We choose a sustainable future, and so we must educate students to prepare them to create it—in a place that inspires them.” Since its founding, more than 750,000 volunteers in 73 countries worked on improving the learning environments of seven million students around the world.
Volunteers had eight projects to choose from and received a free Green Apple Day t-shirt for their service. The projects included several outdoor activities such as contributing to the maintenance of the Exeter trail network by picking up fallen branches, marking trails, removing falling logs and trimming back growths. Beekeeping Club planted pollinator-friendly vegetation near campus hives. Encouraging recycling and repurposing, environmental proctors distributed hundreds of recycling bins to dormitories. The Exchange organized the student thrift store and materials that were collected in the spring that might otherwise have end up in the landfill. Taking volunteer work off campus, ESSO Beach Cleanup and DORSAL teamed up and went to Seabrook Beach for beach restoration and cleaning. In addition to this, the Exeter Wildlife and Conservation club set up motion-activated game cameras in the campus woods in order to survey and document the species on Academy property, and the Farm and Garden club planted garlic bulbs in raised beds outside Wetherell to be used in the dining hall.
“We choose a sustainable future, and so we must educate students to prepare them to create it—in a place that inspires them.”
“The whole premise is to get students outside, connecting to aspects of our [campus] that they might not normally connect with, in particular the outdoors,” English instructor and Sustainability Coordinator Jason BreMiller said. “When there is a large group of people who are fired up to do something positive for the community in relation to the environment I think it is easier to get on Green Umbrella Advisory Board and to feel connected to it.”
BreMiller, who is also co-chair of the Exeter Green Umbrella Advisory Committee, believed the day of service is consistent with Exeter’s moto of Non Sibi in its selflessness and with the desire to create a community of active thinkers, particularly about the responsibility to upkeep the environment and sustainability on campus. While the official Green Apple Day of Service was on Saturday Sept. 24, 2016, the Exeter Green Umbrella Advisory Committee planned the event on Sunday so that more people in the community would be available.
Upper and member of the Green Umbrella Advisory Board Lara Galligani thinks that Green Apple Day is important because she believes Exonians have a duty to give back to the environment and around Exeter. “The earth is dying,” she said. “I really care about sustainability, and I want to do as much as possible to make Exeter as green as possible.”
Despite the unexpected rain the morning of the event, club members and interested community members still came out to the preliminary meeting point by the track. While lower Grace Gray, an environmental proctor, thought the event would have run smoother if it was sunny, she said the rain reminded her of nature, the reason she attended in the first place. Her favorite part of the day was at the beginning, as she was surrounded by students and teachers who were equally as enthusiastic as her. “I loved getting the recycling bins to Wheelwright, and when I started labeling them and the people who saw [them] were very excited and happy,” she said. “That was really gratifying.”
Gray enjoyed seeing people come together to make the Academy’s campus more sustainable. “I hope that the movements started will create a snowball effect of awareness around campus, because once people are informed about sustainability great things can happen.”
Fellow environmental proctor and upper Lilly Carden mirrored Gray’s excitement over seeing others participate in volunteer work. “I think there can be a big impact because now there is an easy way to separate trash and recycling,” she said.
Upper and co-head of Farm and Garden Club Meg Bolan explained that the three different types of garlic bulbs they planted should be ready to be harvested around July, by then standing at a foot tall each. The group worked through the rain in the morning, and Bolan said, “Everyone seemed excited and ready to help all throughout, and I’d say it was a huge success.”
Lower Maddie Moon planted blueberry bushes with Beekeeping Club that will pollinate in the spring to support bee populations in the area. They also pulled weeds. “[It] was a lot of work but really fun and satisfying afterwards when we saw how much we did,” she added. Upper Eesha Shah also thought Green Apple Day had been productive, pointing out that with so many volunteers it was easy to finish the jobs.
Upper, co-head of Exeter Exchange, the environmental magazine Sustain and member of the Green Umbrella Advisory Board Pedro Sanson thought the multitude of projects attracted many different people, making the event a success. “It is great to talk to other co-heads and come up with new ideas and projects together to raise awareness on campus,” he said.