Ole Miss Circle on gameday. COURTESY: ISABELLA CARUSO
The Green Grove Initiative was launched by The Office of Sustainability in 2008 and is still running strongly today. The initiative is run by a team of gameday coordinators who work in the Office of Sustainability as part of the Green Student Intern Program. Landscape Services and the athletics department collaborate very closely with the Green Grove Initiative to help ensure the program is successful.
Hallie Grace Haines, senior project manager for the Green Grove Initiative, hopes the initiative will become a recognizable and expected element of the Ole Miss gameday experience.
“We are all capable of playing our part in reducing our environmental impact and ensuring the rare beauty of the Ole Miss campus for generations to come,” Haines said.
The primary goal of the Green Grove Initiative is to decrease the amount of waste that ends up in landfills as a result of gameday waste. This is maintained by increasing recycling practices and the use of reusable containers in tailgating areas as well as Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
Lindsey Abernathy, project coordinator of the initiative, said all are welcome to volunteer for the initiative and applications for student positions as gameday coordinators will be accepted late this semester.
“We work closely with athletics and landscape services to illustrate to fans that recycling in the Grove and stadium is easy and is expected,” Abernathy said.
The Green Grove volunteers meet prior to every home football game on the Student Union Plaza as well as at the Oxford Recycling Center, for those volunteers who choose to help with recycling. In 2014, the Initiative engaged nearly 400 student volunteers, a record for program.
This football season, the Green Grove Initiative collected 12,150 pounds of recyclables, achieving a 3 percent diversion rate, a new record for the university. Abernathy sees plenty of room for improvement since there was a total of 398,420 pounds of waste generated in the Grove during this football season.
Abernathy hopes to continue to break records with the Green Grove Initiative in the future.
“We all love the Grove, and this is one way to help keep it beautiful,” Abernathy said.
For information about volunteering for The Green Grove Initiative, visit green.olemiss.edu.
