This is the fifth article of a series looking at how college age young people live Sustainability and how this experience transforms their life. In this series, we looked first at how the Drexel University Environmental Sustainability Community experiment came about. We then consider how the experience transformed the life of the ESC Group facilitator and of the group original members: Kate the tall Science Undergrad Student who took her friends dumpster diving and Megan the low-key efficient organizer. This post is a short essay by Ben, the unexpected environmentalist.
Ben is a tall, slim and very articulated young man who seems to have absorbed a vast amount of information related to Sustainability. In my eyes, Ben was the most unexpected member of the ESC Group. Ben is a single child from a main stream suburban middle class family whose parents may have been a little surprised to see their son so captivated by the whole subject of Sustainability.
Here is Ben’s account of how his participation in the ESC affected his life, in his own words:
“I had one reservation when I made my decision to join the Drexel University Environmental Sustainability Living-Learning Community (ESC): I was nervous to join a group before having an opportunity to even meet the other members, and I was certain that I wanted to get involved with green initiatives on campus. Times were changing, and I wanted to be part of that change.
While living at home and going to High-School, I was very interested in making small changes within my everyday life that would help me to live a more sustainable lifestyle. Whatever I could do to generate less waste, any product that I could buy from a local or domestic source, any way I could use less electric power – you name it, I was making a point to do it. And I was trying very hard to get my family on-board too.
Being involved with the ESC at Drexel has not only been an enjoyable experience, it has certainly built my understanding of what it is to lead a sustainable lifestyle. Everyone in the group contributed their own definitions of sustainability, shared their cultural perspective and introduced their own ideas on how to be “green”. Once we all became comfortable with each other, this sustainability renaissance never seen before at Drexel grew into a very gratifying experience – mostly because we all became friends.
I feel as if I’ve learned so much from my peers. For example: on my own, I would have never come to the conclusion that having particular dietary habits is directly related to the green Life Style . Similarly, I would have never actually desired to eat Vegan cuisine, had I not been introduced to it in this group. Never!! My parents thought I was crazy for partaking in the Vegan meals we prepared for our weekly meetings, considering I grew up in a house where chicken or “concletin” were dinnertime staples.
It was not just about the healthy, animal product-free Vegan cuisine; it was the preparation and procurement of the food that made our weekly meals so sustainable. Rain or shine, hot or cold, we would make the trek from campus to Trader Joe’s to buy the fresh ingredients we needed to make our Vegan feast. Using cloth bags, we carried the food all the way back to campus and prepared it together. Sure, sometimes we used the trolley because it was just too cold outside and not everyone was able to partake in the preparation of the food; and we all still managed to make it to the meetings, enjoy each other’s company, eat yummy food and learn from one another.
I am truly grateful that choosing to participate in this group has led me to make friends with such interesting people I may not have otherwise met. Not only do we have a common interest in the preservation of this beautiful planet, we can also have fun together while doing so. Besides, with whom else would I have gotten to go dumpster diving?? It does not get much better than that.”
