Green Cities Sustainability Corps 2011

In March 2011 my time as an SCA Sustainability Fellow with the Allegheny County Sustainability Program has been eventful and rewarding. I perform a wide variety of tasks in support of efforts to implement measures that will result in a cleaner, more cost-efficient Allegheny County. In addition to such daily administrative tasks as scheduling meetings and delivering documents to County partners, I have also been engaged in numerous projects.

Under Jeaneen Zappa, I have worked with internal “green teams” to identify and support energy efficiency measures that are happening within each respective County department. As part of Allegheny Green’s outreach efforts, I have worked closely with Jeaneen in both designing an electronic newsletter and in research and writing articles for the newsletter. I have proofread and edited numerous documents related to sustainability efforts and recycling, and am currently closely involved with efforts to implement a more comprehensive and wide-spread recycling policy.

Currently we are partnering with the Purchasing Department to rewrite the County’s purchasing policies so that the County uses vendors who supply locally made products that are made safely and with minimal impact to the local environment. In addition, I am also engaged with Human Resources in the hopes that we will be designing and deploying an employee commuting survey that will highlight how County employees get to work and in what ways the County can support those employees who bike, walk, take transit or carpool.

I am very appreciative and grateful for the opportunity that has been given to me. In my opinion, I have an awesome assignment and my supervisor, Jeaneen Zappa, does a tremendous job in keeping me engaged in a variety of tasks that require me to wear many hats.

I hit the ground running in March 2011. Penn State Cooperative Extension hosted the Local Foods Showcase in the 2nd week that brought in over 50 vendors and chefs and another 160 community members. Before the event I assisted in all aspects of the logistics and administrative preparation including designing nametags, table tents, stuffing folders and, day-of, manning a registration table as well as a vendor table. Another large majority of the month was focused on outreach via the Yum Pittsburgh blog and facebook page. I contributed two blog entries, with more soon to come, and increased facebook “likes” by 10%. I also helped create community awareness of Penn State Extension’s role by connecting a local teacher with resources on sustainability and by tabling for Penn State at an Environmental Resources Fair.

My first Pittsburgh Food Policy Council meeting had fewer attendees than usual because of the time of year but was still an excellent introduction to some of the councilmembers and their roles in the community. I took minutes, which I distributed to the steering committee, and started research on other Food Policy Councils with an eye towards gathering these councils in a regional symposium in late summer.

Jeff and I used March to brainstorm, connect, recruit, and plan for the next nine months of Pittsburgh Garden Experiment events. One event, Pruning and Espalier with Jana, went off without a flaw and had a great turnout. Other events, such as a Vacant Lot Remediation Course and a Composting Course, are gathering a lot of interest on the meetup site, already, and the calendar looks to be filling out quite nicely and with a broad range of events.