SPARK Ignites Another Year of Campus Sustainability

Just before Fall Welcome, twenty students ranging from sophomores to grad students, spanning a wide array of areas of study, came together to volunteer, learn, and grow under the tutelage of the Office of Sustainability. The SPARK Sustainability Leadership Program is a 9-day multi-faceted upperclassmen experience that supports WashU’s move-in activities and sets the tone for WashU’s sustainability culture for incoming students.

SPARK students hit the ground running with a weekend of on-campus volunteering: breaking down cardboard boxes to recycle, selling gently-used dorm essentials at the Share Our Stuff sales, and teaching new students how to sort their trash using WashU’s three-stream waste system. “Many of the service opportunities SPARK participants are plugging into are efforts being led by partners like the Student Transitions & Family Programs (formerly the First Year Center), Campus Life, Residential Life, Dining Services and Campus Mail,” shared Cassandra Hage, assistant director of sustainability. “We are finding that campus partners are building sustainability into their plans – and together we can really set the tone for campus culture.”   

Participants spent a night at Shaw Nature Reserve where they got to spend abundant and restorative time in nature along with informative presentations by campus partners and guest speakers. Through the next week, students continued volunteering for shifts in the dining halls to orient new students to waste sorting and sign them up for ReusePass, WashU’s reusable container program. SPARK participants spent a collective total of 386 hours volunteering over the week and a half program. Also interspersed were visits to Cahokia Mounds, an urban farm, and a workforce training culinary program.

“I loved seeing the mounds and learning more about the history of the land around me,” stated sophomore Ambrose Brady, “and I also really loved climbing the stairs to the top of one of the mounds and seeing all of St. Louis from the top.” Students visited Cahokia accompanied by local members of the Indigenous community in St. Louis. Their visit was followed by discussion and a presentation by Eric Pinto, assistant director at the Buder Center for American Indian Studies.

“I learned a lot about organic farming, regenerative agriculture and the impact that even small-scale efforts can have on the wellbeing of the community,” shares junior, Meghan Jachna, about her experience at EarthDance Organic Farm School, “…the workers at this farm encouraged me to want to educate myself more about issues of food justice and native plants.” Sophomore, Sean Hwang, also found the experience meaningful and states, “Volunteering at EarthDance Farm was a truly transformative experience. Witnessing firsthand the implementation of native mushrooms to decompose organic waste, fertilize the soil, and ultimately help address local food insecurity through the Pay-What-You-Can farmstand, I realized the importance of a holistic approach to sustainability.”

A new feature of the program this year was the participation of Principia College. Two students joined the cohort to experience WashU’s sustainability programs and share about Principia’s sustainability operations. Hage, who facilitates the SPARK program for the Office of Sustainability, reflects on the exchange: “As we think about expanded impact by transferring successful strategies to other university contexts, regional collaboration with other higher educational institutions is both important and mutually beneficial.”

Reflecting on the SPARK experience, Hwang expresses, “I highly recommend SPARK to those seeking hands-on, community-engaged opportunities for sustainability initiatives in the St. Louis community and beyond.” Anyone looking to get involved in WashU’s sustainability operations during the school year can sign up to join WashU Green Ambassadors. SPARK applications for next summer will open before the end of the Spring semester.