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Environmental Education VISTA Denae Bradley serves with UM’s Office of Sustainability

The University of Mississippi’s Office of Sustainability supports the university’s efforts to create and maintain an eco-friendly and sustainable campus. The role of Denae Bradley as a 2016-17 AmeriCorps VISTA was to foster these campus-based initiatives with the community. Specifically, Bradley worked to connect low-income families who are interested in making life-changing choices that incorporate fresh, local food consumption, community and school gardening, and environmental education. Bradley partnered with student organizations, Office of Sustainability interns and community organizations to provide curricula and projects that deepen and expand environmental, health and sustainability-related opportunities for LafayetteOxford-University community members and beyond. Community and campus partners included the LOU Boys and Girls Club Garden Club, the Batesville Boys and Girls Club Garden Club, Oxford Community Market and UM’s Garden Club.

With the help of a VISTA, the Office of Sustainability has a better opportunity to create and expand community and campus projects that respond to issues of food insecurity, advocate for environmental education, and promote initiatives such as composting and mobile farmers markets.

“When introduced to new ways of thinking about the environment, these kids’ thirst for knowledge and increased energy gives me sincere hope in my own work for the Office of Sustainability and as a VISTA,” Bradley said.

Studies show that connecting a human’s imagination to the environment at a young age creates a shared partnership between the individual and his or her surroundings. Children have the Denae Bradley

chance to learn that they are part of the earth and that it is our shared responsibility to be stewards in the cycle of sustainability.

“I see hope in the children’s eyes every time we do a lesson with them,” Bradley said. “Allowing them to be outside of a traditional classroom and to explore, share and care is our goal through these programs.”

Bradley plans to attend Howard University’s sociology Ph.D. program this upcoming fall semester, where she will continue her work on student activism and black student agency as well as community organizing and youth restorative justice initiatives. Although unsure of her goals following the program, Bradley said she hopes her goals will align with public sociology where she will merge the scholarly work of sociologists with minority communities and nonprofit organizations as they try to increase their overall sustainable goals toward a more just society. n

UM students work alongside local youth to cultivate community gardens.