In preparation for 2014 Sustainability Week, the Sustainability Office and Environmental Leadership Office hosted the Kickoff Rally in the MU Student Center from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday.
The rally was held to inform students about the upcoming events that were going to take place during Sustainability Week, which include Recycle Mountain and a showing of the documentary “Gasland Part 2.”
There was also a raffle held for gift cards and bicycles.
Mizzou Food Coalition Coordinator Jessica Hill said that students have taken notice of their efforts.
“We’re getting a lot of publicity being out here and showing that there are a lot of students at Mizzou that support sustainability and want to see our students take more actions to improving the sustainability on campus,” she said. “We want to get more students involved in things that are already going on with sustainability on campus and (make) people aware it’s an important issue to students here.”
Sustain Mizzou President Jackson Hambrick said the event was successful, thanks to a little extra help this year.
“Sustain Mizzou used to run the week completely by itself, but this year we expanded to a collaboration,” he said. “Our core planning team had people from (U.S. Green Building Council) student affiliate, the Sustainability Office, the (ELO), Sustain Mizzou, (Tigers Against Partisan Politics), etc. We had a lot of groups come together.”
Some of the other organizations that have contributed to the Kickoff Rally include the Student Environmental Design Association, Mizzou Horticulture Club, Feminist Student Union, Coal Free Mizzou, MSA/GPC Craft Studio and the Wellness Resource Center.
Hambrick said the collaboration effort really helped give perspective to the event.
“It really brings an interdisciplinary approach to this event,” he said. “I’m personally from environmental science and food science, so I only see environmental issues one way. But when you bring in other people’s perspectives from architecture, Feminist Student Union, (the) Sustainability Office, etc., it’s a lot easier to cater to ideas about environmental issues and sustainability.”
Hambrick said he has high hopes for the week and hopes that all students will take opportunities to experience it.
“Sustainability Week isn’t just aimed toward hardcore environmentalists, or as people like to refer to as ‘hippies’,” he said. “Our goal for this week is to bring attention to sustainable issues that Mizzou has done and what we want to see done. We want to see students that talk about the environment and care about it.”