IMPACT

Service to Community Partners

OPERATION CLEAN SWEEP
One of our community partners was Operation Clean Sweep of New Bedford, MA. This nonprofit organization was created in 2006 and its goals include organizing events to help rid the city of litter and trash. OCSs mission is to raise awareness and educate people about the far reaching negative effects of litter and trash on our environment. The mission that OCS carries goes along with the mission that we the Lean Green Clean Up Team created at the start of the semester.

We are a group of senior H.R. majors at UMD partnered with Operation Clean Sweep, both striving for a cleaner future. Our mission is to educate children and raise awareness about important environmental issues within the local community.
Operation Clean Sweep and the Lean Green Clean Up Team set out on a mission to educate students in the New Bedford school district, change their behavior, and promote the overall well-being of the city. The relationship we developed as a team with OCS was a beneficial relationship for us and our community partner. The individual that we had the most contact was Marissa PerezDormitzer the Education Coordinator. We continually updated her on our progress with the project through email notifications. In addition, she provided us with feedback for the ideas we had and directed us towards promoting the ideals of OCS.

Communication and Meetings

We had a few meetings with OCS in the beginning of the semester. During the initial meeting with OCS we met Marissa and Diane Berube in charge of Education/Outreach. The

purpose of this initial meeting was for the group to meet some of the members of OCS and get a better understanding of what projects and initiatives we would like to take on. During the meeting we discussed ideas we had including getting the Standard Times involved in our project. Marissa and Diane were very receptive to our ideas and even provided us with additional ideas for the project including some schools we could work with which included Gomes Elementary School and Hayden-McFadden Elementary School. Ultimately our team came to the decision to work with a smaller school called Congdon Elementary School located in the south end of New Bedford.

Operation Clean Sweep invited the Lean Green Clean Up Team to another committee meeting on February 21st to discuss the project further. Kayleen and Kathy attended this meeting to represent the group. The members of OCS asked for a summary of the project we were doing and provided feedback about items that they did not agree with. For instance, we explained the idea for the float we were planning on making which included recycled materials such as cardboard and plastic bottles. We wanted to paint these items and form a float that represented our work with the school. However, OCS did not agree with this idea because once we painted the recyclable items they would no longer be able to be recycled. Although this aspect of the meeting was not what we expected the overall meeting went well and they were pleased with the ideas we had.

Service Provided to Operation Clean Sweep

The service that we the Lean Green Clean Up Team provided to OCS included the sustainable float we built to represent OCS in the Earth Eve Parade. To satisfy the needs of our community partner we had to build a float of 100% recycled materials. In addition, these materials needed to be in original condition so that they could be recycled after the parade was complete. We wrestled with a number of ideas but finally came to the conclusion to have a recycling pyramid with facts about litter and recyclable items. We received blue recycling bins from Marissa to use when making our float. We then filled these bins with recyclable items including glass, plastic, paper, cardboard, and aluminum.

Our group also participated in an anti-litter campaign hosted by OCS in New Bedford. The event was held on Saturday April 20 and the goal was to clean up litter and trash in ward 2 near North Front Street and Sawyer Street. Group members promoted this event for OCS by handing out approximately 40 flyers to the students of Congdon Elementary School. In addition, the event was posted on the groups facebook page to get friends and family involved in the clean-up. Additionally, Net Impact an on campus group and national organization was involved in the process. They were contacted by Kathy to get involved in the cleanup event. Our goal with getting involved in Operation Clean Sweeps clean up event was to promote the clean up by posting flyers and getting as many individuals involved in the clean up as possible.

CONGDON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Along with Operation Clean Sweep, our group decided to pair up with a second community partner; we chose to work with kids because we wanted to educate and allow them to participate in a project that would have a positive impact in their lives. Built in 1907, this small public elementary school located in New Bedford, was named after James Bunker Congdon (1802-1880). He was a man who dedicated his life to public service and establishing the New Bedford Free Public Library which was the first in the United States to be built with public funds. Having been involved with the PPF project in the past, the school principal and staff was no stranger to what our mission was all about.

Communication and Meetings

We began by communicating with Principal Steven Machado through email, after introducing ourselves and giving a brief overview of what we hoped to do while working with them, we scheduled a meeting at the school. We discussed our ideas with Mr. Machado and he suggested that we work with the two fifth grade classes the school had. At this gathering we were informed about the need to have CORIs filled out and processed so that we would be able to work with the children. After two weeks the CORIs were cleared

and only then were we able to schedule a date to execute our lesson plan. In these two weeks we met with both teachers. Mr. John Costa and Ms. Kelly DaCosta who gladly listened to our proposal and helped us improve our lesson plan with ideas on how to get the students involved while still enjoying the lesson

Service Provided to Congdon

We provided an educational and entertaining experience for the children and taught them what a huge difference they can make by recycling and straining from littering. Not only were they involved in the green aspect of the lesson plan but also in us as individuals with many curiosities about the college life in which we stated what a great opportunity going to college is and encouraging them to further their education.

A video shocked them as they saw the catastrophic effects of littering that were killing birds on an island thousands of miles away from civilization. Our goal was to get the kids involved with the lesson enough to absorb what we were teaching and enjoy participating in the activities. The service our group provided along with interaction of the children more than exceeded our expectations. All of the students were responsive to our questions, actively listened and took notes on the lesson that was being given and celebrated when a prize was received. The prizes given out were free homework passes for the top three students who finished a word search first and gift vouchers to the school store. Initially we planned on providing gift cards to stores such as Toys-R-Us, Target etc and then became aware of how much the students loved shopping at their own school store, and that this would put the money spent back into the school.

Our second visit to the school was to guide and perform a clean-up of the school premises with the fifth graders. We went over a safety hand out provided to us by OCS, handed out the materials such as gloves and trash bags and split up into teams. We picked up and disposed about 20 bags of litter and debris and cleaned up over half a block radius. We did purchase popsicles to be distributed after the clean-up, but since it had to be done through

the school, it took two weeks to be delivered and did not make it there in time. However, the teachers agreed that when the treats arrived, they would surprise the kids and let them know that it was a thank you gift from their friends at Umass Dartmouth.

Community Involvement
80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Congdon Elementary UMASS Dartmouth Sponsors Operation Clean Sweep Family & Friends Standard Times (x1000)

Number of People and Groups Involved in PPF Project

Congdon Elementary School

The team promoted and involved a variety of people and organizations in our project. One of those organizations was Congdon Elementary School. We worked with two 5th grade classes in this school educating them with a green curriculum and hosting a cleanup event at their school. We worked with approximately 41 students, 2 teachers, and 1 principal to organize all the events at the school. The faculty that was involved in the project was teachers Kelly DaCosta and John Costa and Principal Steve Machado. We had an actual impact on the students at Congdon and they believed that doing the clean-up helped save the environment.

UMASS Dartmouth
The Lean Green Clean Up Team also aimed to gain support from on campus organizations. One of our goals was to get the support of at least 1 on campus organization and get them involved in one of the events. As a group we wanted to work with Net Impact because of their background in supporting everything green. Two meetings were held with the leaders of Net Impact to educate them on all that we were doing with our project. The goal of meeting with them was to get them involved in the parade or the clean-up event hosted on April 20. During the meeting one of Net Impacts leaders Shawna Caldwell said she would tell another on campus group the Green Navigators about our events. Unfortunately, to our knowledge no one from Net Impact came to the parade event. Although, they did not show at the parade we made efforts to get them involved.

Sponsors
As a team we were able to gather the support of several sponsors to provide us with the necessary funds. The sponsors were able to obtain were MCK Painting and Remodeling, Guidos Plate Glass, and Stephen Kelleher Architects. Obtaining these sponsors allowed us to purchase popsicles for the students at Congdon, provide the students with prizes, and purchase UMD T-shirts to be worn during the lesson plan at the school. We were happy to get the support of these businesses and we placed a thank you sign honoring them on our float during the Earth Eve Parade.

Operation Clean Sweep

Operation Clean Sweep was our community partner and another organization involved in our project. We represented OCS in the Earth Eve Parade with our float. There are 9 total members on the OCS committee team but we worked most closely with were Marissa Perez-Dormitzer, Diane Berube, and Lynn Coish. We also tried to involve people in the Operation Clean Sweeps clean up on April 20. We wanted to gather as much support as possible for this event and help OCS in the process. During the April 20th clean-up we impacted the New Bedford community by cleaning up Ward 2 of all trash and litter. The clean-up indirectly impacted all of the people that live in that area of New Bedford and provided them with a safer and cleaner environment.

Family and Friends

The impact of our project reached more than us as individuals we brought our project ideals home. Our family and friends were involved because we spoke with them about our project and got ideas from them. In addition, our families put aside recycled materials such as cardboard and plastics so that we could use them in our float. In addition, Johns father and Kathys father helped them with the plywood for the float; cutting and drilling the necessary pieces. The family and friends that we involved in the project assisted us and learned more about green facts in the process.

Standard Times
One of the best methods of reaching out to the community is using the media because it reaches a wide range of people. We were able to have two articles posted in the Standard Times about our project. The first article was posted on April 11 the day of the Earth Eve Parade and stated that we were working with Operation Clean Sweep and we had a float in the parade. The second article posted on Saturday April 13 and was much longer and included the clean-up that we performed at Congdon Elementary. This article was featured on the first page of the Standard Times! The readership for the Standard Times is about 75,000 on Saturday therefore; through our two articles posted we were able to impact the readers of the Standard Times. The facts and information we learned over the course of the semester will not just stay on our wiki the people and organizations we involved in our project will hopefully live greener and cleaner lives because of it.

Earth Day Awareness, Education, & Behavior

Pairing up with Operation Clean Sweep, and working closely with the District Recycling Coordinator, Marissa Perez-Dormitzer allowed us to help raise awareness about recycling and the effects of littering on our environment. Working with Congdon Elementary School helped us raise awareness and education on recycling and littering in both of the 5th grade classes that we worked with. When we began our lesson at Congdon and we asked the

students simple questions about Earth Day, and recycling they actually new quite a few of them because they had learned them at home with their families. On our first day at Congdon Elementary, before we began our lesson plan we administered a pre-test to see exactly what they knew about recycling and how it really effects our environment. We used these pre-tests as an analysis to see what their knowledge was before the lesson plan, and then be able to compare it to what they had learned after the lesson plan. The majority of the students got about 6/10 questions incorrect on the pre-test.

At the end of the lesson plan that first day we played a trivia game with the students in which they were all very eager to answer the questions that we were asking and answered them all correctly. We also made I Pledge posters with the students that were displayed throughout the school. The school cleanup took place one week after the lesson plan on a cold rainy Friday morning. The cold and rain did not keep the students from getting out there and cleaning up their school. For the whole hour and half that we were out there they were picking everything up, from plastic wrappers to cigarette butts. The students were in a way intrigued by the cleanup and kept asking questions about the trash they were picking up making sure they were not leaving anything behind. They even turned it into a fun game and set goals for themselves about the number of cigarettes and plastic wrappers they would find in the schoolyard. Not only were the students working hard to clean up their school and learning about recycling, they were also learning to work in teams for a good cause as well. Our involvement with Congdon Elementary School educated the students about Earth Day and recycling, and also helped them raise awareness in which they will be able to share with their family and friends outside of the classrooms.

Sustainability
A key element to our PPF project was to be as sustainable as possible. This was even more apparent when we began brainstorming ideas for our actual float. Once we had all agreed on a design, we then got in touch with our community partner at Operation Clean Sweep to

see what they had to say. After altering a few of our ideas we came to an agreement and began work. Our float, which was actually two smaller floats to reduce the weight, was made of all recyclable materials such as six blue recycling bins filled with recyclable materials such as paper, plastic, glass, aluminum and cardboard attached to two pieces of plywood. We also created posters containing facts on littering and recycling which were attached to the bins to help get our point across to the public on the effects littering has on the environment. Once the parade was over, the bins were given back to Operation Clean Sweep and the rest of the materials were recycled aside from the plywood.

Another way our team was able to have a positive lasting effect on our surrounding communities aside from the parade was our involvement with two 5th grade classes at James B. Congdon Elementary School to raise awareness about the importance of recycling. Our group went to the school on two separate occasions to teach the two classes on littering and recycling and then to perform a clean-up on the school grounds with aid from Operation Clean Sweep. We were able to collect 20 bags of trash and debris which also impacts the community by hopefully getting them to follow suit and keep their own properties clean. Teaching children in the 10-12 year old age group was excellent because we felt that they were old enough to comprehend the points we were trying to get across so that they could start at an early age to help protect the environment in which they live. We even had an article written up about us, and the clean-up which appeared in the Standard Times on April 13. In the article there were a few quotes from the students and their thoughts on the clean-up. Marina Oliviera, a 12 year old student claimed, Its helping the community and thats a good thing. Michael Durant a 10 year old also added, Its to help save the environment and the nature around us. Hearing this from the students definitely pleased us and reassured us that we did make an impact.

Creativity
Our team was very creative in designing and putting our works together in organized and constructive ways in spite of all the constraints encountered during the process of our project. The creation of our float in a very short period of time, after our initial idea being rejected by our community partner and the design and organization of our Wiki are the concrete examples of our creativity. Also, we had to be very creative to come up in a very short time period with a new plan and solution when we ran into the problem of only being able to go to Congdon School on one day instead of two. In order to be able to accomplish our goal we had to condense our lesson plan in a way to fit the time we had available. Additionally, we had to redesign our activities such as the fun fact sheets, and the jeopardy game which was reduced to only ten questions. Our group worked very cohesively and collaboratively in order to overcome all these adversities and we were able to accomplish our main goal of raising awareness of protecting our environment through encouraging recycling, reducing and reusing. We started off with 5th grade students by showing a video that demonstrated the deadly impact that littering has had on the wild animals and calling their attention of why to recycle. Also, we taught students the proper way to recycle through lectures and fill in the blank games created for the specific purposes and the creation of poster pledging to recycle. In order to keep all the students that we were working with motivated and engaged with our activities we brought prizes. The prizes were presented to the first 3 students to complete the cross word search and students correctly answering the post test questions. Also, popsicles were served to all the students who participated in the clean-up activity.