{"id":4538,"date":"2011-10-13T13:08:21","date_gmt":"2011-10-13T20:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=4538"},"modified":"2014-01-25T18:10:25","modified_gmt":"2014-01-25T23:10:25","slug":"tcnjs-bonner-center-partners-with-sustainable-jersey-to-create-a-greener-tomorrow-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=4538","title":{"rendered":"TCNJ’s Bonner Center partners with Sustainable Jersey to create a greener tomorrow"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Members of the Bonner Scholars' Environment Team and several members of the municipalities' "Green Teams." Back row: Nick Dimauro, Richard Lee, Regina Zick, Kara Ukaegbu, Vertulie Massenat, Gayatri Oruganti, Dan Rita. Front Row: Erica Hernandez, Heather Camp, Chelsea Sandmeyer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The College’s colors are blue and gold, but this year TCNJ’s Bonner Center for Civic and Community Engagement will have two other colors on the brain: green and bronze<\/p>\n

A team of seven Bonner Scholars are taking part in an innovative new partnership with Sustainable Jersey, an organization that gives points to municipalities that take concrete steps to enhance their environmental sustainability ranking.<\/p>\n

By helping plan and execute \u201cgreen\u201d projects throughout the year, these Bonner Scholars will aid officials from four municipalities\u2014Mount Holly, Trenton, the City of Burlington, and Green Brook and Somerset counties\u2014in their goal of attaining the 150 points necessary to attain Sustainable Jersey\u2019s \u201cBronze Level\u201d certification by October of next year.<\/p>\n

Each project will gain the municipalities a minimum of 5 points toward their goal.<\/p>\n

This innovative partnership will be beneficial all around, according to Heather Camp<\/strong>, senior program director at the Bonner Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bonner Center is very excited about this project, as it helps us to connect to different communities throughout New Jersey in a meaningful, long-term way. What I think makes the Bonner Center a good partner for the project is that we have the opportunity to mobilize a greater number of students\u2026 to help communities meet their Sustainable Jersey needs,\u201d Camp said. On Sept. 7, the leaders of three of the municipalities’ designated \u201cgreen teams\u201d met with Bonners in-person for the first time to discuss the coming year\u2019s projects, including green fairs, recycling campaigns and community rain gardens.<\/p>\n

According to Camp, this partnership is important because in the past, the Bonner\u2019s Environmental Team did not have as many opportunities to build ongoing relationships with the communities they volunteered in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis gives us some ongoing, concrete things that out team can work on, and relationships to build on instead of just doing a project,\u201d Camp said.<\/p>\n

Another important aspect of the collaboration is that Bonner Scholars will be working on many projects with first-year TCNJ students fulfilling their Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) Day requirement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have \u2026the potential to partner with classes in the future to help communities meet their Sustainable Jersey needs. It\u2019s part of the College\u2019s mission,\u201d Camp said. \u201cThis provides students with a really concrete way to learn ways they can reach out to the community when they leave (the College).\u201d<\/p>\n

Already, the Bonners and first-year students successfully collaborated with Mount Holly green team on the construction of two rain gardens on Saturday, Sept. 17, as a part of the College\u2019s first CEL Day experience with Sustainable Jersey.<\/p>\n

The project is highly anticipated by participants on all sides of the table, including the College\u2019s Municipal Land Use Center (MLUC), which co-founded Sustainable Jersey in 2006.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a pilot project. It\u2019s the first time we\u2019ve ever done it. It\u2019s exciting,\u201d said Winnie Fatton<\/strong>, project manager of MLUC\u2019s Institute for Sustainability Planning and Governance. \u201cThe projects that (the municipalities) proposed were projects that we felt could be accomplished by students, and the students had interest in these projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times, people think that everything is fine, but if you look at certain Sustainable Jersey categories, they suggest certain areas \u2026can be improved. We\u2019re looking forward to having the students help us with our goal,\u201d said Dan Rita, a member of the Mount Holly green team.<\/p>\n

According to Fatton, MLUC secured $25,000 from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation to support student scholarships for this work this year. If successful, this pilot project could grow into the creation of a \u201cSustainability Service Corps\u201d of students, the first of its kind in the U.S, she said.<\/p>\n

Fatton said certified municipalities often receive more grants than non-certified ones, but this is just one reason among many why communities are attracted to the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only is it a political thing, it also saves money,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople want to do the right thing, but they\u2019re not really sure what to do\u2026 It\u2019s an easy road map to doing the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sustainable Jersey is currently working with over 60 percent of New Jersey\u2019s municipalities. Of the 566 towns in New Jersey, 350 are already registered with Sustainable Jersey, and 74 are certified. Communities that achieve Bronze Level certification will be recognized at an awards banquet during October of next year.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The College\u2019s) Bonner and Municipal Land Use Centers are excited about this partnership which extends the practice of student community-engaged learning with service beyond typical non-profit community partners to local governments,\u201d said MLUC\u2019s Executive Director, Brian Reilly<\/strong>. \u201dAt a time when municipalities across the nation are increasingly challenged to fund basic services, this project is an example of extending New Jersey\u2019s collegiate resources to aid NJ cities and towns do that and more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A team of seven Bonner Scholars are taking part in an innovate new partnership with Sustainable Jersey with the goal of helping four municipalities attain Sustainable Jersey\u2019s \u201cBronze Level\u201d certification.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":4566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-october-2011","category-on-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}