Corvallis Sustainability Coalition

Programs: Engaging community: as a network of more than 350 partner organizations (businesses, nonprofit organizations, faith communities, educational institutions, and local government) and hundreds of individual volunteers, the coalition provided grassroots leadership, inspiration, resources, and opportunities for collaboration in working on sustainability issues. The coalition encouraged community involvement and interaction by inviting the entire community to its quarterly meetings, where attendees had the opportunity to network and share information about sustainability issues, and numerous presenters among the partner organizations and 12 action teams presented their sustainability accomplishments. The monthly sustainability events calendar also provided opportunities for community members to learn about our partners' activities. The coalition continued to expand and deepen its collaborative efforts with partner organizations and participated at other local events such as da vinci days and win expo. In march 2017 the coalition hosted its annual sustainability fair and town hall event, which was attended by more than 500 people, to continue highlighting the sustainability efforts of the community and to prompt discussions among the participants in small groups on local sustainability matters. The sustainability fair featured local food, lively music, and more than 50 hands-on sustainability exhibits. The featured speaker at the town hall event was keynoter dr. Samantha chisholm hatfield, who shared insights about traditional ecological knowledge.

acting on climate change and promoting economic vitality: the coalition launched a new initiative called saving green that helps local businesses to increase their energy and water efficiency, reduce their waste, and save money in the process. The program is coordinated by the coalition's new sustainability outreach specialist. The coalition also continued to lead the 5-year harvest sunshine campaign to more than double the number of solar panels on corvallis rooftops. Promotion included showing the coalition's "harvest sunshine" video to a wide variety of audiences and sponsoring solar house parties to help homeowners make the transition to solar. In addition, the coalition took the first steps toward creating a commercial pace (property assessed clean energy) funding program in corvallis to make it easier for property owners to reduce their energy use and to make the transition to cleaner energy. The coalition's economic vitality action team and the corvallis independent business alliance co-sponsored the 7th annual buy local first day & holiday contest, which garnered strong participation, buoyed by a new buy first local first social media contest.

fostering a secure local food system, creating a healthy community, and protecting natural resources: with a goal to encourage more families and young people to connect with our local farms and the products they offer, as part of the "eat 40% local" campaign, the coalition's food action team coordinated the 8th annual local eats week, featuring local ingredients prepared by chefs at 14 local restaurants, and also distributed "simply seasonal" recipes to thousands of people through social media and at the farmers' market. The team also distributed the 8th edition of the corvallis garden resource guide to 700 current and prospective gardeners, coordinated three edible garden tours, led a local event on national food day that featured a community apple crunch and distribution of free farmers' market tokens to children, and installed neighborhood planting kiosks along residential sidewalks and in parks and community gardens that display rotating information posters to support gardening and neighborhood connections. In addition, the team co-sponsored the community's annual spring garden festival, a free event with family-friendly activities, plant clinics, demonstrations by the benton county master gardeners, and more than 40 vendors that offered items for sale, including annuals, perennials, specialty plants, flower baskets, garden art, gifts and more. The coalition's health and human services action team continued its green cleaning campaign to encourage people to choose safe alternatives to hazardous household products; the promotion included distribution of green cleaning kits and a survey of schools and day care centers to assess cleaning practices. The coalition's water action team initiated a project with oregon state university engineering students to test on-campus stormwater filters to determine their long-term effectiveness. The team also continued the dunawi creek regeneration project by planting hundreds of native riparian shrubs, bulbs and rushes to bring back a portion of the stream that had been lost. The coalition's natural areas action team coordinated the 8th annual natural areas celebration week with 30 events that engaged community members in appreciating our local natural areas.

strengthening transportation options, encouraging waste prevention, and designing a welcoming community: in an effort to foster a culture of cycling and transit ridership, the coalition's transportation action team provided bike valet services for hundreds of attendees at septembeerfest and at the fall festival, using bike racks that were transported by bikes. In addition, the team sponsored the 8th annual car free day, which launched the new "get on board" campaign to promote travel by bus, and also sponsored the 3rd annual "trip-by-transit" using the corvallis-amtrak connector bus and the amtrak train to take participants to and from portland, oregon. The coalition's waste prevention action team's recycling block captains distributed waste prevention information to nearly 4,000 households every 4 months, and corvallis-area reuse directory volunteers continued to distribute reuse directory copies to 70 distribution sites to promote reuse rather than landfilling of unwanted household items. The team also initiated a new prescription bottle reuse program with a locally owned pharmacy to permit customers to reuse their prescription bottles, which are not recyclable. The coalition's housing action team continued to sponsor the creative options housing tour, and two follow-up forums generated strong interest and fresh ideas about how to address the lack of affordable housing. The coalition also distributed more than 1,000 homeless services cards to ensure that people who are facing food and home insecurity know about local opportunities for food, shelter, and support services.