Third Year (2016-2017) Year in Review
My 2016-2017 school year was spent 50/50 working at RBI and in classes at UC. This year I tried to create a common ground between these two ways of life through community service. What came to mind was creating a local farmers market on UC’s campus.
This idea for a UC Farmers Market was created at the 2016 Sustainability Summit and impacted my year greatly as I attempted to spear-head this campaign to make the markets a reality. My goal was to take the growing passion I had for sustainable food and horticulture and direct it towards creating a tangible sustainability program that could be enjoyed by all those on UC’s campus.
Throughout the year three farmers markets were hosted, one in the fall and two in the spring. The event in the fall was held inside TUC and was very successful, there were lots of students active in this fall program as they too had been inspired by the sustainability summit earlier that September. Unfortunately in the spring there were not nearly as many people to help in the planning of the farmers market and many of the responsibilities landed on myself.
The biggest challenge I had with the farmers market was sustaining and bringing new vendors to the markets. The reason for this difficulty was that farmers and vendors are hesitant to join new markets that they are not sure are going to be worth their time. Another reason was that during the spring markets some vendors did not do very well. My leading assumption is that there is disconnect between vendor pricing and student affordability. The food and goods the vendors were selling were likely out of the price range of students. An answer to this solution I hope to explore next year is to work with vendors to reduce portion sizes and bring dishes into the lower budget range.
On my second and third coop rotations I continue to work for RBI building and designing sustainable greenhouse systems, primarily water. A lot has changed since my first rotation during the spring of 2016. Some of these changes include leadership and my abilities. What I hope to work on this spring is to become a better leader. I am focusing on this goal because I see it as the biggest hurdle if I were to continue a career at RBI. This will goal will be accomplished through communication and problem solving in the office and on job sites.
This idea for a UC Farmers Market was created at the 2016 Sustainability Summit and impacted my year greatly as I attempted to spear-head this campaign to make the markets a reality. My goal was to take the growing passion I had for sustainable food and horticulture and direct it towards creating a tangible sustainability program that could be enjoyed by all those on UC’s campus.
Throughout the year three farmers markets were hosted, one in the fall and two in the spring. The event in the fall was held inside TUC and was very successful, there were lots of students active in this fall program as they too had been inspired by the sustainability summit earlier that September. Unfortunately in the spring there were not nearly as many people to help in the planning of the farmers market and many of the responsibilities landed on myself.
The biggest challenge I had with the farmers market was sustaining and bringing new vendors to the markets. The reason for this difficulty was that farmers and vendors are hesitant to join new markets that they are not sure are going to be worth their time. Another reason was that during the spring markets some vendors did not do very well. My leading assumption is that there is disconnect between vendor pricing and student affordability. The food and goods the vendors were selling were likely out of the price range of students. An answer to this solution I hope to explore next year is to work with vendors to reduce portion sizes and bring dishes into the lower budget range.
On my second and third coop rotations I continue to work for RBI building and designing sustainable greenhouse systems, primarily water. A lot has changed since my first rotation during the spring of 2016. Some of these changes include leadership and my abilities. What I hope to work on this spring is to become a better leader. I am focusing on this goal because I see it as the biggest hurdle if I were to continue a career at RBI. This will goal will be accomplished through communication and problem solving in the office and on job sites.