Updates, Thanks, and Ship Composts Tractor Campaign

Updates and Acknowledgements!

I wanted to say thank you to all Greenleaguers, Alpha Phi Omega Brothers and Sisters, Univ 101 students in Dr. Maret's class, and all other volunteers for your time on Sunday!

We were able to get a great deal of work done thanks to your help… It was much needed catching up because of the slow recovery from covid.

If you didn’t see the pictures yet – they are on the campus farm Facebook page - click the link above! If you have photos you would like to share, please send them to me!

We still have tasks ahead of us as we plant for fall/winter season crops and other “off season” work chores. So if you are able/willing to volunteer, Mason Gagliardi (the farm GA; mg6367@ship.edu) or Karina Sahli Sahli (ks5318@ship.edu Farm Club Committee Chair) will get you the work schedule for drop-in hours each week. They can help coordinate specific group work days as well. Also please reach out to Mason and ask to be placed on the mailing list for the weekly “newsletter”.

In the meantime a few other items:

1. I wanted to share and celebrate the AWESOME news that we did receive word that we received over $10,000 in our most recent grant award (bringing the amount we have raised to launch Ship Composts to over $35,000). This is most excellent. Huge thanks to Mary Ann Leidigh and Antonia Price for spearheading so much of the grant work and to Russ Hedberg, Heather Sahli, and Andrew Hare for helping over the summer with the grant writing.
2. However we still have to raise funds to purchase a small sub-compact tractor/loader to fully bring this project to fruition and we need your help! The eco-diesel tractor (and a dump trailer) we have selected is from a PA-manufacturer, a local vendor, and our sales rep is a Ship alum. So we are getting a piece of equipment that we know will serve us many years. Thus we are working to raise an additional $17,500 to get this piece of equipment through a crowd funding campaign organized by the University Foundation. Our campaign is called: Reducing Raider Waste: Tractor Campaign. If you would like to be an advocate to help raise funds, that would BE AMAZING. Check out the video here: https://www.givecampus.com/eh86jz, set-up your own login so you can get your own shareable link to post on your social media platforms. Do it today so we can reach our goal! Any amount counts! $1.00, $10.00, $100.00, $1,000 or more! It all helps!
3. We also would like to see if any of you are interested in helping envision the future of the Campus Farm by participating in a focus group a bit later this fall. The purpose of this focus group will be to provide feedback to the Farm Club Committee of Green League, the Center for Land Use and Sustainability, the Environmental Steering Committee, as well as the Departments of Biology and Geography-Earth Science and others to help develop a strategic plan for the Campus Farm’s goals and next steps. Please let me (Dr. Cornell; srcornell@ship.edu) know if you are interested in participating in that focus group!

Once again – THANK YOU and let’s keep rockin!