Education & Awareness, Habitat & Wildlife, Outdoor Education & Leadership

The main goals of my project include:
- Educate students at JJC about MIdewin National Tallgrass Prairie (what it is, who works there, and its history). 
- Promote JJC sustainability effort awareness through promotional activities. 
- Gather a motivated, hard working group of individuals around campus to participate in Midewin's annual Earth Day celebration work day. 
- Promote awareness of tallgrass prairies, and how few of them are actaully left in a state nicknamed "the prairie state". 
-Gather momentum for an annual Midewin volunteer event at JJC for years to come. 
-Work on the removal of Garlic Mustard, an invasive species at Midewin. Also the clearing and trailblazing of overgrown trails. 
 

30239
Il-53
Wilmington, IL 60281
United States

Since I joined Joliet Junior College's Student Sustainability Union (SSU), I have had so many great opportunities to make a positive impact on my peers and every day natural environment. I heard about the  Eco-leadrer certificaton opportunity trough the SSU, and immediatly jumped to aciton after the SMHEC summit I attended, which provided the foundational inspiration and information needed to begin this endeavor. 
My project was just executed on Saturday, April 29th. Not without imperfections and challenges, the project was very successful overall. 
I felt that my project initially needed a small "army" (25-40 students) in order to work, but I found a smaller, dedicated group of individuals was a recipe for the best.

My project mentor and sustainability coordinator/ professor at JJC, Maria Rafac, assisted me whenever I had a question, and played the crucial role of transportation and moral support on the day of my project. I consulted her on the matter of logistics, which posed as the only potential source of necessary fundraising. Once I spoke with her, she informed me of JJC's rental vehicles, and the idea that as a Sustainability Union, I could utilize it and save money!

This worked perfectly, and really helped once I figured this out, as I was able to present details of my project with confidence and certainty. Once I could do this, I presented my Eco-project at the most recent spring SMHEC gathering at JJC, and also at my school's sustainability committee. 

These presentations helped to draw awareness toward Midewin from JJC faculty, the Joliet Community, and potentially to other surrounding communities. The presentation opportunities also doubled as a draft board for my project, forcing me to consider some of the finer details and specific goals. 

Past intial resistance, logistics, and gathering hard workers, the challenges for this project were unique, but few. One challenge was keeping focus, since the time from its first conception and execution was about 6 months apart. Another was keeping quality communication steady and ongoing between myself, students, JJC faculty, and Midewin personel. The biggest cocncern the day of the project was the weather. It actually started to thunderstorm right as the final weeds and logs were beingn pulled and removed. 

My overall expectation is that my project has been sucessful enough in its marketing and educational value that it helpst to builld the momentum for another volunteer day for next year, perhaps with more people, perhaps with less. Either way, a bond between JJC and Midewin has been created, and my hope is that it never dies.  

College campus awareness, Midewin tall grass prairie, Volunteer work, Brush clearing, Invasive species removal