By: Erik Squire

There’s a fantastic group called the Green Building and Sustainability Club (GBSC) here on campus. The members are working to build hoop houses, which are miniature type greenhouses that can be carried, and cheaply built. They are building these hoop houses out of new and recycled material, such as free pallets, and a few things they had to buy themselves. These students are working hard tapping into their construction knowledge and using their own tools.

In the end they hope to use these hoop houses to grow food on campus, for the students. On top of this they are also collaborating with other clubs trying to get the most out of the hoop houses. Here was a message that GBSC member Whitney Huse sent out to other members of the club:

Great news, everyone wants our hoop houses! I went to a collaboration meeting last week and here is what I found out. Lots of people are working on similar sustainable gardening projects and they want to include us.  The Enactus Club wants a HH (hoop houses) for cycling seedlings for their crops that they will be harvesting indoors in the basement of culinary arts.  I told them they could have our first model and tell us what needs to be changed…ventilation ect.  Also a very large group of students and teachers that will be selected to have their own beds behind culinary arts building are creating a gardening club, and they will be interested in having a few HH’s incorporated into their space.  They also might have a potential next project for us, building a compost bin for their garden to recycle their garden scraps.  The collaboration of us and these groups and culinary arts using left over produce from the Enactus Club, will become a gardening hub of sorts.  Nice to see that we have a goal, and our projects are needed and will be put to great use! I told the Enactus Club that after our next meeting on Thursday we should be close to our first finished hoop house.

This is an outstanding Club; sustainably feeding students and going green. If anyone would like to join the Club or find out more about it, please contact the Center for Student Involvement and Leadership (CESIL), and I’m sure they would be more than happy to connect you with GBSC.

Take care SMCC; I hope you have a great productive summer and I hope to have you reading again in the fall. Till then, stay sharp, and stay awesome.