Project Update by March 1st 2013 Nature Village, Sustainable Family Living at UC Berkeley Accomplishments from October 2012 to February 2013 Green Family Program 50 Village families were recruited during several community activities and in person promotion to create the Green Family Program. Its main purpose is to start work closely with a group of Village residents interested in participate in programs for energy and water saving, as well as proper waste disposal providing feedback to Nature Village, to be able to make better desertions in terms of programs to be applied at the whole Village, both household and village management levels. The first activity done directly with residents was a round of energy audits, which consist in to measure the exact amount of electricity that their electric appliances use. This was done in partnering with BS@C. An invitation to register for a visit was sent and 21 families responded. After that, the visit was scheduled,using doodle. The visit consisted in one Nature Village representative and one student from BS@C going at the families’ apartment, explaining the purpose of the audit, applying a questionnaire with questions about their general use of electricity and gas, including laundry habits, while the BS@C student measure the electricity consumption of the electric appliances. The results were processed and a personalized report was sent to each single family, as well as a list of recommendations. A sample of the report is added at the end of this document.
As part of the efforts to provide with energy and water saving tools to the Green Family Program families, tow proposals for a TGIF minigrant were submitted, in collaboration with Power save/Green campus. The one for Sustainable laundry is looking to reduce the use of dryer machines using drying racksto air dry clothes. The second one was for uzlow valves, which will be installed at the shower head to save water used. Village weekly messages The university Village administration send a weekly message every Thursday for the residents registered in their list serve. This has being a good forum to send communications to Village residents. Early January, a notice and recommendations were sent for the new mandatory for no more plastic bags in the checkout stands in retailer stores in Alameda County. The recommendations included new ways to carry your shopping and a guide to do your own bag with not sewing need, re-using a T-shirt. Invitations for the Green Family Program, as well as environmental activities held close by the Village. Public meetings A public presentation about Nature Village was done on December 12th 2012 for Village residents in the monthly meeting that the Village Resident Association-VRA organizes. We talked about the origin of this group, actual team, current projects, plans and collaborations with
students groups and local non-profit organizations. Residents where very interested and asked questions about the programs. The organizers commented that this was an exceptionally crowded, being that December meetings use to have low attendance. Berkeley Climate Action Coalition (Multicultural force task) Nature Village’s work with a multicultural community is contributing with other local organizations, sharing the challenges that our team has being facing during the implementation of our programs in terms of communication, habits and perceptions of sustainability.
Waste Management The Village presents a problem at the assortment of recyclables materials, with high rates of contamination in the recycling bins. Nature Village and Campus Recycling and Refuse Services are working together to solve the problems that are generating this contamination. Tow CRRS students and tow Nature Village team members did a visual waste audit at Civicorp facilities, vendor for recycling materials pick up at the Village. The major contaminants were identified and accurate information was received about the kinds of materials that are really going to be recycled and the ones that are going to the landfill. Whit this information CRRS,in collaboration with Nature Village, is designing new signs which will be installed in two weeks from now to be piloted in order to evaluate the expected reduction in contamination.
Reuse, Reduce and Recycle Nature Village is very interested in to create opportunities to promote the reuse, reduce, and recycle principles, at the same time that strength of sense of community, that’s why a series of community events are being organized yearlong to promote the exchange of materials between residents.
The first of these events was a toy exchange with the participation of around 15 families. There was also a kid’s table where kid played while the toys were assorted and the time to choose started.
The second activity is a community yard sale that will be held on Saturday March 9th for all the Village residents interested in buy, sell or donate stuff in good conditions. This kind of activities uses to have an attendance of at least one hundred of residents, who gather and creates a great community environment. We will prepare a kid’s corner with bubbles and chalk for the little ones to have fun. These activities are also good opportunities for community outreach, so Nature Village will install a booth to share information, recruit new resident in the Green Family Program and answer questions from resident regards energy, water and waste. Environmental Education Summer Program (Chancellors Community Partnership) Nature Village is coordinating “CreeKids“, a hand on environmental education summer program at the Codornices and Strawberry creeks. 2 curriculums will be developed, one for UC Berkeley students to be environmental educators and for kids in scholar age. One educational documentary will be produced as an educational tool. The abstract was already approved and the full proposal will be summated on March 4th. The partners are Tim Pine, EH&S at UC Berkeley, Susan Schwartz from Berkeley Partners for Parks, and Zachary Pledge from Berkeley Unified School District, with the participation of Pandora Thomas as Environmental Education specialist. Cycling As part of the promotion of the use of bicycles, Nature Village and the Village Manager looked for Village funding to buy a Fixit station for the residents to have access to the basic tools to repair a bicycle with not need to buy it. This will be installed during the month of April and a hands-on workshop will be offered.
Challenges The main challenge in all the activities has been outreach. It is complicated to reach so many residents, with different interests and languages. Sometimes the attendance has been lower than the expected and we need to work harder in using more networks and languages to reach more residents. For the Green Family Program, one of the challenges for the green family program is during the outreach, finding that the more effective way to register families is with the in person invitation, which require a lot of time, effort and preparation to talk individually with residents to explain the program, procedure of the visit and expected outcomes. Other is to match the schedule of BS@C (classes), with Nature Village (family) and residents (school, work and family). Fortunately doodle is helping a lot, but it requires one person keeping track of every single person participant, to be sure everyone choose their more convenient dates, to make the couples practicing the audit and putting the information together for the visit (time scheduled, couple, address). During the first round of energy audits, each participant was keeping the results sheets and at the end the information was spread between all the participants, with the risk of been missing. Now we will use dropbox to compile all the information, scanned from hard copies and compiled for all the team to have access to it. One of the challenges for the waste management program was that no one of the volunteer was interested in to take actively this part of the project, that then was taken only by the coordinator, who didn’t have enough time to attend. But now, CRRS assign a student
Updated budget Only two expenses were done since the in person report to Katherine on January 2013, and these are the stipends for the project coordinator, that are $700 per month, for February and March, making a total of $1,400. We still have $9,264 that will be expended in the next months for the building and installation of a message board, where Nature Village will post information about its programs, invitations to community events and results. This sign will be installed at the main playground besides a green way that crosses the Village in a very visible spot. A student will be hired for editing Nature Village’s website, which will be linked to the Village website by the next week, for the easy access to the residents. The moving IN and OUT guides are in process of elaboration. The distribution will be electronically mainly, but some will be printed with TGIF funding to distribute into the “moving in� package that the Village office give to the new arrived residents. A presentation of this guides is already scheduled in the VRA public meeting, the third Wednesday of April, for the residents that are getting ready to move out during the summer have enough time to dispose properly of their not longer needed stuff. The signs for the path to highlight natural elements through the Village are not yet in elaboration, but will be installed by May.