This year, the Office of Sustainability is making extra strides to create a more environmentally-conscious community at Baylor.
Today, the Baylor Sustainability Student Advisory Board will host its first Dr Pepper Hour. Last year, the Office of Sustainability hosted a similar reception, but organizers hope this year’s event will attract more attention to the organization since it will be at the weekly Baylor tradition. The event comes just in time for Earth Day, which is on Friday.
“We hope that students will get an opportunity to hear a lot of ways they can get involved to take care of God’s creation on campus,” said sustainability coordinator Smith Getterman. “We hope they will walk away better informed to help the Waco community.”
The newly-appointed executives for the board spent considerable time reaching out to organizations in Waco to attend the event.
“We are bringing in outside groups to Baylor, and we’ve reached out to Keep Waco Beautiful,” said board president Morgan Davis. “We are also reaching out to Sunbright, which is the recycling service that Baylor uses.”
The organization also reached out to student clubs and organizations for their assistance in hosting the Dr Pepper Hour.
“We’re reaching out to different clubs to see if they would like to host a table,” Davis said.
Altogether, eight student groups and eight non-student organizations have confirmed their attendance, Davis said.
Since this is the first time the advisory board has hosted such an event, the organization created graphics for social media to better advertise their event.
Davis said the board hopes to use the event as an opportunity to promote the Green Meeting certification program, which helps organizations monitor resource use, according to the Baylor Sustainability website.
Student organizations that participate in becoming Green Meeting certified must evaluate the sustainability of the organization by analyzing how much waste their group creates and how much energy it consumes.
“We are also trying to make the Green Meeting Certification something that will hopefully be required of all clubs,” Davis said.
Last semester, Davis said she spent multiple hours reaching out to student organizations in order to introduce the clubs to the program.
Davis said she hopes clubs participating in Dr Pepper hour will become Green Meeting Certified and spread the word to other clubs.
“We are working on our legacy and how we want campus to remember the board,” Davis said.
