I talked to Kevin Vaccarello after he spoke to our class, because I thought the Green club at HPU would love to help out or take a tour of his farm. I am also very excited to take the tour with the class, but I wanted to share it with the Green club and give them the opportunity as well.
I have been an active member of Green club since last semester and I am a co-head of the Recycling committee for the Hawaii loa campus. My friend Danielle and I started it last year because we noticed the Green club was working really hard to get paper recycling for the downtown campus, but there was no one in the club who knew much about the HLC, and no one on the HLC had created an effective and lasting paper recycling service. Apparently some students had tried years ago, but with the student turnover it fell flat. When we came into the picture, the campus had no paper recycling whatsoever, which is ridiculous for a school in Hawaii that claims to be employing sustainable ideas.
We decided to change that, and last year I discovered how much work it really takes to get something like this off the ground. This year we have much more support and hope for the program. The Green club is also taking on the garden project and hoping to create a closed-loop system- food from the garden supplying the dining commons, and the food waste being composted back into the garden. Dr. Primavera is also expanding his aquaponics facility and we have been hoping to be involved in that or learn about it.
The club is also hoping to do more community-oriented projects this year. That said, I knew as soon as Kevin started talking that the Green club would take a huge interest in his farm. I told our president about it at the meeting a couple of days later, and it turns out he knew exactly who Kevin was and a little about what he is doing. He thought it was great that I talked to him and asked me to email him about helping with his farm. I'll let you know how it plays out.
excellent, alyssa!
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