Youth Venture

We aim to make our residence hall a more sustainable environment through advocacy and initiative.

Meredith Baker, Bun Funk, and Anna Podkovyrova were all friends up on the eleventh floor. Sam Cialek and Adam Wolf were roommates on floor nine. Even though they came from different places--from Atlanta, to Minnesota, to Canada--they were all similar in their concern for the environment.
One Sunday, as Sam was emptying his trash container in the trash closet, he decided enough was enough. There he saw a familiar sight--bottles, boxes, cans, and other recyclables all sitting there, ready to get thrown out. Meanwhile, the recycling bins in the basement, where very few ever went, were nearly empty. It was hard to place the blame completely on his fellow residents--it is a little ridiculous to have to make a journey out of recycling--so Sam decided to do something. He put out an announcement for the formation of a sustainability club at Hayden to deal with this and other issues. He got his roommate Adam, a marketing expert, aboard. At the first meeting, the two were joined by Meredith, Ben, and Anna, who all brought their own expertise to the table.
Meredith was part of a campus-wide environmental group, and brought a lot of knowledge of the green issues to the table. Anna was an art-minded design guru who had a passion for advocacy through a multitude of mediums. Ben was an advocate for sustainable living and had a lot of ideas on how the group could encourage Hayden residents to use greener housing products.
And so the Hayden Sustainability Council was born.