Hope College
EN-9: Community Partnerships

Hope partners with the Holland Outdoor Discovery Center Macatawa Greenway organization to collaborate on research pertaining to education, habitat and land preservation, water quality issues, and stream bank protection on the greenway. This partnership has grown over the past 5-years and there have been 2-5 student interns every year. Hope also organizes an annual one-day volunteerism partnership with various organizations throughout the Holland community, consisting of many projects pertaining to promoting sustainability and land conservancy in the area. This "Time-to-Serve" is organized by Hope's Volunteer Services group. The “Time to Serve” program is designed to help new students learn about service while helping and getting to know their community and becoming better acquainted with one another. The project began in the fall of 2000 with 10 projects and about 100 participants, and had grown to 24 projects and 300 students a year later. In October 2001, “Time to Serve” 2000 received a 2001 Distinguished Service Award from Keep Michigan Beautiful Inc. during the group’s annual conference. Projects are scheduled throughout the Holland and Zeeland area, and range from sorting at Bibles for Mexico, to farm work at the Critter Barn, to removing invasive species at the Outdoor Discovery Center Macatawa Greenway, to groundskeeping and cleaning at many organizations.

Hope College supports the Holland-Hope College Sustainability Institute (HHCSI) which in turn also helps to support another collaborative effort called "Living Sustainably Along the Lakeshore." All partners are required to lead at least one of the monthly topics, but the HHCSI is the lead organizer for the entire series. This group offers a series of FREE educational events which aim to educate and empower Holland area residents to live more sustainably. The series is organized by: City of Holland, as part of the Sustainability Committee’s efforts GreenMichigan Herrick District Library, as part of the Library’s adult programming series Hope College, as part of the Sustainability Institute League of Women Voters, as part of the Natural Resource Committee’s efforts Meijer Campus of Grand Valley State University, as part of the University’s commitment to sustainability. West Michigan Environmental Action Council The first event began in December of 2014 and continues to run a fall and spring line-up of various topics related to sustainability. Specific information about this group can be found at: https://hope.edu/offices/sustainability/holland-hope-college-sustainability-institute/events.html The series began in the Fall of 2014 and in September 2016 the group received the "Top Project of the Year" Award from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality's Neighborhood Improvement Program.

Hope College is a partner in the Holland-Hope Sustainability Institute (HHCSI). Together the City of Holland, Hope College, and the Holland Board of Public Works developed the HHCSI to support outreach, education, and practices geared toward creating a more sustainable community. The HHCSI partnership was approved in April 2014. The purpose of the Holland-Hope College Sustainability Institute is to support growing efforts to encourage, engage, educate, and drive sustainable culture in water and air quality, energy efficiency, land use, and environmental innovation using a Sustainability Framework evaluation process and other best practices. Goals: Become a New Environmental Policy Innovator Become a Clearinghouse for Sustainability Policy Become a Research Center for Sustainability New Best Practices Make a Difference — Replicate and Grow Sustainability Success in the Region In January 2017 the Sustainability Dashboard was launched utilizing the City of Holland's seven-pillar framework with “lenses” to help us evaluate and make more sustainable choices. We have used this framework model as a way to share information about our journey to become a more sustainable community.

Hope College and the Holland-Hope College Sustainability Institute (HHCSI) are also partners in the Community Supported Partnership (CSP) and Regional Centers of Enterprise (RCE) for West Michigan. http://gvsu.edu/wmcsp/ http://www.grandrapidsrce.org/ http://www.grpartners.org/ The Director for the HHCSI and Hope staff regularly attend meetings for the West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum. http://wmsbf.org/ Hope College Green Team members also meet with sustainability faculty/staff at partner schools in the Great Lakes College Association (GLCA) on an annual basis and since 2014 have been working on a collaborative "Environmental Dashboard Project" with a smaller group from the GLCA.