Contact: Morgan Tubbs
Photo by: Megan Bean
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A Mississippi State student group continues its efforts to implement the Green Fund, a student-run reserve that would purchase renewable energy and fund energy-efficient campus projects.
Since fall 2010, members of Students for a Sustainable Campus have worked to raise environmental awareness among university faculty, staff and students.
"Our goal for this semester is to raise as much money as possible for the Green Fund," said SSC co-president and senior sociology major Katie Masters of Collierville, Tenn.
"Once the Green Fund has funding, 20 percent will go towards student interns, 30 percent will go towards the Green Power Switch and 50 percent will go towards sustainability projects on campus," said SSC co-president Brittany L. Walters of Crawford.
Walters, a senior psychology major, said the organization works closely with the MSU Office of Sustainability to sponsor "green" campus programs and projects.
From directly soliciting donations to organizing benefit concerts, the group has, to date, raised over $4,200 dollars for MSU's Green Fund initiative.
During the 2013 spring semester, Masters and Crawford said the group is planning a series of fund-raising activities, including collecting donations at the MSU Barnes & Noble bookstore, tabling on the Drill Field to advocate SSC and sustainability each Thursday from 12-2 p.m.; holding specialized events for Earth Day on April 22; and attending the Mississippi Alumni and Students for Sustainability conference this month to learn more about current sustainability issues, as well as raising environmental awareness and funds for campus sustainability projects.
"Green energy and the environmental crisis are something we have to face globally. Groups like SSC are the movements that potentially have the fire to get people to notice these things," said SSC outreach leader Grant Beatty, a sophomore philosophy major of Starkville.
Walters, Masters and Beatty said many MSU students take their roles as environmentally-conscious individuals very seriously.
"It comes down to the individual, really, and the small, but important, part each person plays," Beatty said.
For more information on SSC, visit www.ssc.org.msstate.edu.