California State University, Sacramento
EN-9: Community Partnerships

For this supportive partnership, every Friday during active semester months, effective early 2015 to present day, elementary school-aged children (up to 80+) from classrooms all over the Sacramento Unified School District visit the Sac State campus and work in the Sustainable Technology Optimization Research Center (STORC), assisting in learning about vermicomposting and aquaponics by tending to worms in the vermicomposting bin and feeding them to the fish in the aquaponics tanks. This meets supportive partnership requirements because Sac State is sharing resources from the STORC facility, while allowing students to have hands on learning in a fun living lab environment.

Sac State has had an ongoing partnership (5+ years) with Breathe CA, a local non-profit organization. Breathe California of Sacramento – Emigrant Trails is dedicated to maintaining healthy air and preventing lung and other air-pollution related diseases by partnering with youth, advocating public policy, supporting air pollution research, and educating the public. Each year, Breathe CA hosts the Clean Air Awards Luncheon, which honors and awards people, businesses and organizations who not only recognize the importance of having cleaner air to breathe, but also go above and beyond expectations to achieve it. Sac State has been the physical venue for this event for multiple years, including as recent as 2015, and Sac State has also provided a staff member to serve on the Clean Air Awards Luncheon Planning Committee each year. Having a staff member from Sac State represent on this planning committee strengthens the University's presence in the community as the committee is made up of sustainability leaders and others from throughout the local community representing businesses and non-profits. Bringing Sac State into the presence of other sustainability community members in this collaborative partnership, with a goal of planning this very high profile sustainability awards luncheon, from idea development to implementation and review, helps Sac State's reputation as being a leader in sustainability.

Sac State Sustainability began an ongoing partnership with the American River Parkway Foundation (ARPF) in 2014 to participate in their mile steward program. Sac State adopted mile 7 south of the American River Parkway, which is conveniently located directly adjacent to the campus. An official mile marker is posted at mile 7 with Sac State Sustainability named on the signage as the steward. To be a steward means to supply and coordinate regular clean up removing debris and evasive plant species from that portion of the parkway. This is an excellent opportunity for our students to get involved and volunteer in an activity that is local to the campus and easy to access at any time as well as contributing to the beauty of the surrounding campus and community and contributing to a healthy surrounding ecosystem. This is a transformative collaboration because ARPF was interested in creating a stakeholder engagement with Sac State students in implementing real hands on change in ecosystem health and upkeep because Sac State students make up such a significant part of the Sacramento community and the American River is one of the largest natural attractions in the entire region. The duration of this partnership is on-going, with a clean up requirement of 20 volunteer hours per quarter each year. This level of involvement catalyzes community resiliency for the surrounding natural environment because of the scope of impact Sac State has in the community it serves. Additionally, student volunteers from Sac State are a built in volunteer base for clean up needs for the ARPF creating strength in their steward program and can act as an example for others to encourage more stewardship partnerships.