Spring Semester's Sustainability Week - Get Your Green On!

Grab your reusable shopping bag, Sustainability Week is here! Each semester, Santa Monica College students from vegans to carnivores, and all in between, celebrate yummy food and helping the environment by participating in the school's Sustainability Week festivities. Activities include free recipe demonstrations and finished food samples, sustainable swag offers, and free bicycle repair. Participants are also invited to get their hands muddy making their own seed bombs. The event is sponsored by the college's Associated Students, Center for Environmental Studies, Eco Action Club, Plastic-Free SMC, Club Grow, and SMC Bike Club.

Jake Allen, manager of SMC's Organic Learning Garden and past president of Club Grow, supervised the free farmers' market at last semester's event. Allen described Club Grow as "a club that teaches students to grow their own food," and was pleased to see a high turnout for last semester's free farmers' market, where students accepted every last fruit and vegetable offered.

Also at last semester's fest, Club Grow members Emi Osaki and Arthur Rodriguez demonstrated how to make a kale salad with food from the local farmers' market, and offered free samples to students. Rodriguez described their presence at the event as part of the club members' goal to promote food security and safe food preparation to both students and the local community. Rodriguez added, "and today we're teaching how to eat seasonally." As reported elsewhere, buying locally can also help reduce consumers' carbon foot print - i.e., reducing the carbon released iton the air during production and shipping - by reducing the amount of fuel needed to bring food to market.

Bee keeper Susan Rudnicki of Susan's Manhattan Beach Honey displayed live bees in a hive slice at last event's do-it-yourself row. Rudnicki's business rescues unwanted bees, and sells honey from their recycled hives. "There are a lot of bees in Los Angeles that need rescuing, because bees almost always go where people don't want them living," said Rudnicki. "Not all bee keepers know how to do rescue... [and] they live in the tens of thousands in a natural colony." Rudnicki also accepts people who want to learn her craft as student interns.

SMC students Anastasia Bashuk and Yevgem Chevotar scored recycled reusable straws at Plastic-Free SMC's booth last spring. Plastic straws have since been banned on campus. Said Anastasia, "I've seen videos of the turtles with the straws stuck in their noses, and it's very, very sad. We can live without [plastic straws]." She continued, "All the generations before lived successfully without using the straws. I don't know what happened over the past 50 years, but I'm 100 percent sure that we can go back to a more natural way of living, without harming ourselves and the environment."

On Wednesday, October 24, head to the Organic Learning Garden, located next to the Art Department buildings on SMC's main campus. There will be hands-on demonstrations, free food samples, and presentations on foraging, composting, and seed bombs.  

Past festivals have included the Students Feeding Students' free farmers’ market on the Wednesday of the event, featuring produce donated by vendors from the city of Santa Monica’s own farmer’s market, via the non-profit Food Forward. So look for this market during the event's Wednesday activities.