Supporting the SAP
Project Goal
To find a way to bring continuous support and increase involvement and participation to the Sustainable Agriculture Project (SAP) so that the university can fully utilize it as a resource.
View our Fishbone Diagram here for more detail.
Stakeholder Perspectives
Farm Manager: The role of the farm manager is someone with very high interest in our project but not much authority within the university. This means they will be a tremendous help with knowledge about the SAP and connecting us with other university personnel.
Office of Sustainability Practices: Yumi Jakobcic, Director, would be a great partner to work with and can give us insight on ways to help the SAP. She can also provide us with contacts if we need. The office would be highly interested in any work with the SAP and is dedicated to seeing the SAP succeed. The actual power they hold though is unknown.
SAP Advisory Board: The SAP advisory board will have a lot of authority within the university and a large say in what happens to the SAP. These are the university faculty that we need to keep informed and happy with our group’s ideas.
Student Body: Ideally the student body would be highly involved with the SAP but they’re not. Despite this, they are important as interest can be cultivated within them. They are a low level stakeholder.
Assessing the viewpoints of various stakeholders was imperative to this project as the SAP serves the entire GV community.
Bike Share
Implementing a bike share system could make the SAP more available for students.
Bike share systems have been utilized at other universities.
Having bikes around campus and at off-campus apartments for students could reduce reliance on cars for travel.
The university bike shop could provide bikes.
Click here to view our proposed bike locations.
Scooters
Scooters can serve the same purpose as a bike share though they are more fun.
Scooter share companies are present in Grand Rapids.
Logistically this could be more complex than setting up a bike share system.
Shuttle
Volunteer hours at the SAP are consistent from week to week so having a shuttle bus running during these times from Kirkhof could make the SAP more available for students.
Outside of these times getting to the SAP would still be inconvenient.
Grant 1
Quadratec Cares
Goal: To help people promote environmental responsibility.
The grant will be given to someone or a group with a clear plan/project that will benefit the environment.
Any individual, group, or organization in the United States who has a love for all things environmental, and has an idea or event designed to help improve our environment, is eligible.
Grant 2
Allendale Community Foundation
One purpose of the grant is to “Center on the preservation of natural green space and ‘smart land use planning’." This could be used as funds for the SAP as they see fit (creating new functional space from the old house, revitalizing soil, building new structures, creating more plots, etc.)
“We believe that effective outreach should extend not only to our social community, but to our physical community as well.”
Grant 3
Wege Foundation
The Wege Foundation's goal is to make Grand Rapids the best medium sized city in America.
They do this by funding projects in the Grand Rapids metropolitan area that align with their pillars of interest.
Those pillars are Education, Environment, Art & Culture, Community Health and Wellbeing.
Acquiring one of these grants would give more opportunities when implementing a bike share system. With low funds, partnering with the GV bike shop would be a great choice as they already have a rental system that we may be able to work with. With substantial funding we could install stations around campus through a company like CityBike that could open up more options.
Timeline
Interviews
Talking to members of Grand Valley staff that are directly involved with the SAP.
Planning
Finding best possible locations for rental bikes. Incentivize the use of bikes.
Founding & Partnership
Reaching out to campus community partners and apply for grants.
Implementation
Putting the bikes on campus and providing the opportunity to connect the SAP to campus.
