Green Team Students Going to Chicago

Members of Green Team Southwestern will be participating in a service learning trip to Chicago May 9-17.

“The Green Team does a service learning trip every year and this year we are going to Chicago,” says Green Team director Jason Speegle.  “We are going to be working at Riverwoods Christian Camp, which is a camp for underprivileged kids in the Chicago area.”

Speegle says that the Green Team will help prepare the camp for summer usage by painting, landscaping, wood chopping, and trail paving among other things. The Green Team will also be attending the Chicago Green Festival on May 14.

“This is an opportunity for our students to experience, serve, and learn from a community and culture that is different from Winfield and the surrounding area,” Speegle says.  “We plan to do some hard work, have a lot of fun, and grow as individuals and as a team.”

Students attending the trip are Clint Dick, Spivey; Sydnee Nelson, Clay Center; Sarah Rommelfanger, Baldwin City; Daniel Van Sickle, Maize; Kelcie Parrish, Oklahoma City; Mark Strecker, Tonkawa, Okla.; and  Tendai Kwaramba, Zimbabwe.

Alex Gottlob from Gottlob Lawn and Landscape in Winfield will accompany the students along with Speegle.

SC Fares Well in Recyclemania

The results are in from the 2011 RecycleMania event and Southwestern College fared well with state wins in four categories.  RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities.

Southwestern ranks #1 in the state of Kansas in the following categories:

·         Grand Champion Division (percentage of waste being recycled)—Southwestern is at 27.03 %

·         Per Capita Classic (the amount of recycling collected per student at SC)—SC is at 8.53 lbs. per student.

·         Cumulative paper recycled per person—4.54 lbs. per person. 

·         Bottles and cans (includes steel, aluminum, plastic, and glass)—1.41 lbs. collected per person.

Southwestern finished in front of the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, and Johnson County Community College in each of the above categories.

SC finished in second place in the Waste Minimization category just behind Johnson County and in the cumulative cardboard recycled per person, just behind Kansas State.  Complete results can be found at www.recyclemaniacs.org. 

“The Green Team is trying to make it easy for students, faculty, and staff by placing recycling bins in convenient locations,” says Jason Speegle, director of Green Team Southwestern.  “We are trying to recycle a wider variety of material.  We will try to keep changing and improving the recycling program in order to make it more convenient to recycle more.  Our hope is that the SC family would make decisions that would lead to less waste, such as using reusable coffee cups and water bottles in lieu of disposable ones and not printing materials unless necessary.  Small changes go a long way.”

The law firm of Stinson, Morrison, and Hecker financially supported Southwestern in their RecycleMania participation.