Grambling State University has officially gone green. The university kicked off its first recycling initiative Thursday Nov. 15. GSU and eight other universities in the University of Louisiana System hosted events for America Recycles Day.
The purpose of the events was to raise recycling awareness and instill green habits amongst the 92,000 students in the UL system. Keep Louisiana beautiful and the UL system teamed up for a year long partnership to engage students, faculty, staff and community members in efforts to promote waste reduction, litter decline and recycling.
The universities are utilizing a $30,000 grants from KLB for on-campus events and a larger campus/community service project in spring 2013. Each university has been designated a coordinator for the KLB grant activities. The recycling activities were led by the student government association presidents as part of the UL System’s annual student advisory council service project.
The office of Service Learning is also apart of bringing this vision to life at Grambling State. This grant enables Grambling to distribute recycling bins all over campus and work with the city of Grambling to arrange regular recycling pickup.
Sophomore business management major Chandler Thomas, from Indianapolis, Ind. became inspired to start a recycling program when he arrived on Grambling’s campus last year.
“Being raised in a culture that always recycles, when I came to school here I saw all the trash everywhere I thought somebody needed to do something. Why wait for someone when I could do it. In early September I started working on this program and was referred to Dr. Bedford and Corban Bell, other members of the administration got involved and we got the ball rolling,” Thomas said.
The event educated students on the importance of recycling. As a reward for their participation, students were able to sign up and receive 20 service learning hours. Over 2000 hours were awarded. Many students were happy to see a recycling program on Grambling’s campus. “I’m excited that we finally have an recycling initiative,” said Jamila Mamon, a senior business management/marketing major from Anchorage.
“I think it’s cool we’re going to be the first school in Northern Louisiana to have a recycling program,” she said.
Senior accounting and economics major, Corban Bell said, “This program was the kickoff, the faculty and administration are doing their part to make it a reality through funding and programing. As students we need to do our part to change the culture. The students can expect more programs like this.”