The ceremony marked the culmination of a dream that Trustee John Replogle P’18 and wife Kristin Replogle P’18 had to honor Gloria Kaso ’25, a student from Albania whose family years ago had generously hosted the Replogles’ daughter Tate Replogle ’18 during her Peace Corps service �þ��� English in the village of Bilisht.

The Replogles visited Tate during her experience and grew close with Kaso and her family, later encouraging Kaso to consider enrolling at Elon.

In 2023, the Replogles donated $100,000 to the EcoVillage project, which they called “truly inspirational” and “uniquely Elon.” Their gift funded the first home in the neighborhood, which was built by a team of students under the leadership of Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Robert Charest, co-founder of the Center for Environmental Studies at Loy Farm, along with input from Elon’s Planning, Design and Construction Management team.

The Replogles had always planned to name the house in honor of Kaso and to surprise her with the news upon her graduation. On May 22, one day prior to Elon’s 135th Commencement, that dream became reality. Kaso sat on the porch of the house that would bear her name and listened as the ceremony unfolded.

John Replogle recalled how much he enjoyed meeting Kaso’s parents, Drita and Ziqiri Kaso, who share his passion for sustainable living. The families grew so close that Replogle calls Kaso an “adopted daughter.” With her degree in engineering and computer science, Kaso plans to begin her career as an environmental engineer working on water reclamation projects for a firm in San Diego.

“She’s going to go out and help solve the world’s problems, and we could not be more proud of you, Gloria,” Replogle said. “You’ve done an exceptional job. The courage that you had to come so far from home to make (Elon) your home, we are really thrilled and delighted to dedicate this home in your name. We want you to always feel at home here at Elon.”

Kaso teared up after hearing the news as students, faculty and staff broke into applause. She later said she was overwhelmed by the honor.

“To have an EcoVillage house at Elon named after me is more than an honor. It’s one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received,” Kaso said. “It’s a reminder of how far I’ve come, of the dreams I’ve held since childhood and of the future I’m committed to building. It’s not just a recognition. It’s a responsibility I carry with deep gratitude and pride.”

Kaso also shared her gratitude for the Replogle family.

“They saw something in me before I fully saw it in myself,” she said. “Their belief in my potential when it was still just a quiet dream gave me the courage to dream bigger, work harder and push forward with purpose. I will carry their belief in me into every project, every challenge and every step forward. One day, I hope to pass that same gift on, to recognize potential, to uplift others and to help build a more sustainable, hopeful world.”

The EcoVillage is a dynamic living-learning community, where students learn and practice sustainable living principles. The community opened in Fall 2024 with 12 students living in the first six homes. In partnership with donors, the final six homes will be added in the future, creating an opportunity for as many as two dozen students to apply their classroom learning to tending the farm while learning sustainable principles.

The community will serve as a model for sustainable architecture and hands-on, engaged learning opportunities unavailable at many colleges and universities.

At the dedication ceremony, Replogle shared how delighted the couple were to support the project.

“My career has been built on the idea of protecting the planet, and when Kristin and I first heard about this project, we were truly inspired,” Replogle said. “When I graduated, our college president charged us with a very clear directive. He said, ‘The world’s problems are your problems, and there are no problems that better human beings cannot fix.’ Kaso House is a source of inspiration to solve those problems. And hopefully a place like this will continue to inspire young leaders to step up and make the world’s problems their own.”

President Book called the EcoVillage “part of a greater mission” at Elon.

“We know we have engaged, experiential learning, but this mission was also about our students’ understanding that they’re the caretakers of the world ahead and that this sense of empowerment about how they choose to live can actually impact the world,” Book said. “The EcoVillage represents this effort with our students to not only learn by doing, but also to take ownership of the world. Each of these houses represents the use of creativity to respond to our impact on the world.”

Kaso House was a labor of love for 114 student “apprentices” who for two years worked alongside Charest to design and build the home. Charest also incorporated the project into his design courses.

“Every square inch of this house, its structure, innovative details, cabinets, furniture, were made with love and to be loved,” he said.

Charest, an architect committed to the principles of sustainable design, and students presented the project at a national design conference, which he called, “one of the proudest moments of my life.”

“I’m so grateful to Elon for being brave enough to support experiential learning in high stakes projects, such as (Kaso) House,” he said. “I spent the better part of my career designing and building good structures with apprentices. In the beginning, they do not know how to bring designs into being. After this experience, though, 114 wonderful humans became amazing designers, builders, problem solvers, leaders and so much more.”

Abi O’Toole ’26 was one of those student-apprentices and shared her experience at the ceremony.

“I think this building will always serve as a reminder that it was not just about the construction of the building, but also relationships, which I believe can teach us all that the process is just as important as the end result, especially when it comes to our role in sustainability for the planet,” she said. “We’ve worked hard to make eco-friendly choices throughout this build, but in the end, it’s about finding the right tools and the right materials that give us a strong foundation for the future.”

More about EcoVillage & Loy Farm

The EcoVillage living-learning community represents a major step forward in the evolution of Loy Farm, which the university acquired in 2000 from the late Bill Loy Jr., whose generous gifts to the university include Loy Center and the land upon which The Inn at Elon was built. The farm is a sustainable �þ��� and research farm that promotes experiential learning and community outreach and is located along Front Street east of the university’s South �þ��� and Comer Fields, where many of Elon’s intramural and club sports compete.

Each home is approximately 600 square feet and includes two bedrooms, a shared bathroom and areas for food preparation and gathering. The homes include distinctive features of sustainable design and construction, including rainwater collection systems and solar panels. An existing brick ranch house adjacent to the property was renovated to create a student commons building, with a group kitchen, laundry facilities and meeting room.

The farm has become a dynamic living-learning laboratory in keeping with Elon’s longstanding commitment to sustainability. Enhancing sustainability efforts is an important component of the Boldy Elon strategic plan, which will guide the university through 2030. Boldly Elon calls on the campus community to engage in sustainable practices to become carbon neutral by 2037, investing in renewable energy, reducing energy consumption and preparing students to lead lives that build a sustainable future.

About the Replogles

Former chairs of Elon’s Parents Council, Kristin and John Replogle have a long history of philanthropy in education, health, housing and the arts.

At Elon, their gifts have supported many key institutional priorities, including scholarship funding and construction of Founders Hall and Innovation Hall in the Innovation Quad and The Inn at Elon. In 2020, the couple established the Elizabeth “Tate” Replogle Endowment for Team Teaching in Religious Studies in honor of their daughter and her faculty mentors. The couple have also made a generous estate gift and are members of Order of the Oak, Elon’s planned giving society.

John is the founder and partner at Raleigh-based One Better Ventures, which advises, invests in and develops consumer brands with sustainable business models, including Burt’s Bees and Seventh Generation. He previously served as chair of Elon’s Engineering Advisory Board. Kristin Replogle serves as president of the Replogle Family Foundation.

Make an Impact

Many philanthropic opportunities are available to support the EcoVillage. To learn how you can make an impact, contact John Gardner ’01, senior director of development, at (336) 278-7432 or jgardner9@elon.edu.

Ben Shacter ’26 leans on the porch rail of his EcoVillage residence, overlooking Loy Farm and the five neighboring homes in Elon’s latest living-learning community. A gentle fall breeze rustles the oak leaves nearby, a reflection of the natural connection this place embodies.

“We’re all out here doing what we love, and we’re all about making our presence known,” says the environmental studies major from Chicago, referring to his EcoVillage neighbors. “One of the reasons I came to Elon is because it’s so good at providing experience-based learning, and there’s no better learning experience at Elon than this.”

Shacter is one of the first 11 residents of the EcoVillage at Loy Farm, designed as a living laboratory for sustainable living. This year, he and his fellow residents will define the community’s direction, applying classroom learning to real-world activities such as farming and educating others on sustainability, climate and environmental justice.

The LLC’s first six homes opened this fall, each around 600 square feet with eco-friendly features such as solar power, green rooftops, stormwater reclamation and earth-sheltering. The mission is to attract students passionate about sustainable living and eager to share that knowledge. With donor support, six more sustainable homes will be built this academic year, enabling a total of 24 students to live in harmony with nature and thrive among new educational opportunities at Loy Farm.

“Having our students live here at Loy Farm is the most direct way to grow their love for the outdoors, develop their tangible skills in agroecology, and to experience that we are part of, not separate from, our environment,” says Jacob Rutz, lecturer in environmental studies and LLC programming coordinator. “I love sharing my passion for sustainable agriculture with Elon students, and I love being at Loy Farm.”

A vision realized

Since 2000, when Elon acquired the farm from the late Bill Loy Jr., faculty envisioned creating a sustainable living and learning hub. The Department of Environmental Studies spearheaded the development of Loy Farm as a working research farm, providing students with hands-on experience with sustainable agriculture.

“This is a vision we’ve been working on for the past 15 years,” says Michael Strickland, director of the Center for Environmental Studies. “We saw the potential to create programs that would impact students and create opportunities that are unusual for universities of our size.”

The farm, managed by Taylor Black, now includes two greenhouses, or “high tunnels,” for year-round harvests, a productive garden plot and areas for experimentation. A small orchard offers opportunities to cultivate now-rare native apple varieties, among other fruits. In 2022 Rutz, an agroecologist focused on applying ecological principles to agriculture, launched the Green Maker Hub to grow native, hybrid and threatened species, such as a blight-resistant chestnut, and train students in advanced grafting and rooting techniques.

To enhance sustainable architecture studies, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Robert Charest joined the faculty in 2013 and established a design studio at the farm, further advancing Elon’s commitment to hands-on, sustainable education. Next on the list was to provide a way for students to live at and participate on the farm and in the design-build studio, Strickland says. “This is a dream come true for us.”

More importantly, the project aligns with the Boldly Elon strategic plan, emphasizing sustainability and lifelong environmental responsibility. “The EcoVillage represents an important step forward for Elon and our community, who will visit this hub for education about sustainable practices in architecture and the positive impact each of us can have on the environment when we choose how we live,” President Connie Ledoux Book said at the start of the academic year.

The LLC extends the university’s legacy of sustainable leadership, rooted in its 2007 sustainability master plan and progress toward carbon neutrality by 2037. From energy-efficient projects and LEED-certified

buildings to waste-reduction goals, Elon’s sustainability efforts continue to evolve, thanks to the leadership provided by the Office of Sustainability, which collaborates across campus to advance sustainability in operations and develop educational programming focused on sustainability.

‘From the ground up’

Together with Assistant Visiting Professor of Arts Administration Ashley Hollan, Rutz is originating EcoVillage programming focused on engagement and learning across three themes.

The first, wellness in nature, examines how the natural environment helps people recharge, focus and boost their mental and spiritual well-being. A concentration on lived experience and hands-on skills in nature builds knowledge of organic and sustainable gardening at Loy Farm that students will carry through their lives. A third focus on environmental justice and outreach educates students and the community on recognizing injustice and acting together to correct it.

“It’s exciting to see them engage, getting their hands dirty on the farm and learning how to work in collaboration with the land and each other to grow food and healing herbs and maintain the space,” Hollan says. “It is also inspiring to support them as they build a new community from the ground up, navigating the joys and challenges that come with such a trailblazing project.”

That programming is already flourishing. LLC residents self-selected to participate in one of three teams this fall: farming, landscaping, and education and communication.

On several early mornings, Brooks Riley ’27, a member of the landscaping team, accompanied Rutz to install planters at strategic locations among the homes. A history and sociology double major and Elon College Fellow, Riley grew up in an urban area of Chattanooga, Tennessee, without access to a farm. “I’ve already learned a lot of skills in gardening, and those are good practical skills to have,” Riley says. “I’ve always been interested in learning about sustainability and the environment, even if that isn’t my primary focus at Elon.”

“Living here helps me make more connections in environmental studies, with my professors and with other students who are passionate about the same issues and want to learn how to be more sustainable at home and in life.” — Kai Baker ’27

The landscaping crew is establishing small garden plots and decorative areas filled with “beautiful, edible, pollinator-friendly and sustainable” vegetation, Rutz says. Their future work will also improve soil quality and include planting trees and groundcover as cooler temperatures set in later this fall and winter.

By September, the farming team was regularly tending crops at Loy Farm, harvesting tomatoes, peppers and lettuce. In October, they planted fall crops and prepared to sow seeds for winter crops. That produce is shared with Harvest Table Culinary Group, where chefs highlight locally sourced ingredients in Elon Dining menus. Other yields are donated to Elon’s �þ��� Kitchen, the Alamance Community College Food Pantry, Burlington Housing Authority and the local food bank run by Allied Churches of Alamance County.

A series of workshops Rutz and Hollan are planning for this year will explore environmental justice, racial equity and food justice, inviting the campus community and local farmers to analyze issues and foster solutions. Events will also contribute to designing a master plan for the EcoVillage’s permaculture and landscape development.

Beyond the village

Each resident’s experience embodies the EcoVillage mission: modeling sustainable practices and fostering community, within the village and beyond.

For Kai Baker ’27, an environmental and sustainability studies and outdoor leadership and education double major, the EcoVillage fulfills a personal goal of making a difference in environmental justice. As part of the communications team, he develops social media campaigns to promote educational opportunities in the EcoVillage.
“Living here helps me make more connections in environmental studies, with my professors and with other students who are passionate about the same issues and want to learn how to be more sustainable at home and in life,” Baker says. While the students plan social media strategies, it isn’t lost on them that simply living in the LLC and modeling a more sustainable lifestyle may transmit messages that are more powerful than what’s available through laptops and smartphones.

Each morning, communications team member Caden Halberg ’26 mounts his bike and pedals the short distance to main campus. By doing so, the Elon College Fellow and professional writing and rhetoric major from Wake Forest, North Carolina, hopes to get folks thinking about their collective impact. “Seeing me biking to campus shows people that they don’t have to be dependent on cars to get from place to place.”

Halberg is as interested in growing and defining the EcoVillage community — through public-facing events and connections, as well as regular potluck meals and outings with neighbors — as he is in developing his own skills. “I want to learn to use technology to tell the outside world what we do here and promote the EcoVillage beyond the houses,” he says. “We’re more than that. We’re a community.”

Sidebar: ‘A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’

Elon students play a role in every aspect of the EcoVillage at Loy Farm — including its construction. Starting in July 2023, over 60 students worked alongside Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Robert Charest as part of his course The Art of Sustainable Architecture to build the community’s first home.

“This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a real house in college,” says Kade Iervolino ’24, who remained at Elon after graduation to complete the project and was a peer mentor to others on the build. “We wanted this house to be beautiful and well made. We accomplished that, and now I have a stronger sense of how to manage projects and work in a team while maximizing efficiency and making quality work.”

Their finished design features 500 square feet of interior living space and an additional 500 square feet of exterior spaces, including a wrap-around porch. Raising the house on piers minimized the site impact during construction. A standing seam canopy shades the home to block excess heat and cross ventilation reduces the need for air conditioning.

They completed the project equipped with hands-on experience in design and architecture, carpentry and trades, and — perhaps most importantly — teamwork.

For current resident Ben Shacter ’26, who helped construct House 1 and now lives there, the experience is both practical and personally meaningful. “We learned so much across so many different areas about the details of home construction and human oriented design,” he says, “but what I gained the most were skills in team building, cooperation and communication.”

Meet the team

“Every day, I was learning something new and making decisions with high stakes. I had to learn quickly how to adapt to new situations and solve problems, and I think that was a team effort.”

– Genevieve Nichols ’25, environmental studies

“In addition to sustainable design, construction and trade skills, I learned so much about project management. Managing all the time-sensitive things, from inspections to the weather, the entire process has informed the way I work.”

– Nathaniel Brawley McGee ’24, environmental studies

“As a project manager, I wasn’t expecting to love it as much as I did. I’ve become a lot more confident handling tools and trusting myself with measurements. You realize how capable you are.”

– Macey Rodrigues-Cowl ’25, project management and marketing

“We were able to take chances, make mistakes and learn from them. Before, I might have been hard on myself. Now, I can accept them and continue working. That was huge for me.”

– Colin Breuer ’24, environmental and sustainability studies

“It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up, and something I’d never experienced before: building a house, and one that students will live in for decades, while caring for the environment. It’s given me so much confidence.”

– Abi O’Toole ’26, environmental and sustainability studies

“What has been eye-opening for me is how unexpectedly fluid this process has been to result in this level of quality of construction and design. The continuous refining of the design and decision-making on site happened organically and led to beautiful consensus.”

– Robert Charest, associate professor of environmental studies

Before teaming with fellow students last fall to build one of the first six homes in Elon’s new EcoVillage at Loy Farm, Abi O’Toole ’26 had never held a drill or used a power saw. She’d never built window frames, stained and finished countertops, or considered fitting a custom shower and bathroom.

Now, O’Toole has done all of that and more as one of over 60 Elon students involved in the home’s design and construction.

“It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up, and something I’d never experienced before: building a house, and one that students will live in for decades, while caring for the environment,” said O’Toole, an environmental and sustainability studies major from Raleigh, North Carolina. “It’s given me so much confidence to see that I’m capable of this.”

The experience revealed career paths in sustainable architecture and construction waste management, and O’Toole is eager to put her hard-earned skills to use in helping humans live more harmoniously with the planet.

That’s the ultimate goal of the EcoVillage, a dynamic living-learning community at Loy Farm that welcomed its first residents this week. Along with the single student-built home, independent contractors designed and built five others in the project’s first phase. Each home is around 600 square feet, with two bedrooms and shared common areas for two students. While they all are energy efficient,�� individual homes approach sustainability in different ways��— from using solar energy for electricity or hot water, to capturing stormwater through cisterns for irrigation and a vegetative green roof.

In partnership with donors, an additional six sustainably designed homes will be built over the next 12 months, creating an opportunity for 24 students to apply their classroom learning to tending the farm while learning sustainable principles they will carry into the world. The innovative project inspired Elon parents John and Kristin Replogle P’18 of Raleigh to give a $100,000 naming gift toward one of the houses this spring.

The LLC will be a model for sustainable architecture and hands-on, engaged learning opportunities that are unavailable at many colleges and universities. Elon President Connie Ledoux Book emphasized those opportunities this week, calling it a “living laboratory” for students to explore responsible use of resources and “carry these practices into the world as informed global citizens.”

“The EcoVillage represents an important step forward for Elon and our community, who will visit this��hub for education about sustainable practices in��architecture and the positive impact each of us can have on the environment when we choose how we live,” Book said this week. “One of my favorite parts of this project is listening to the students and designers describe the powerful learning experiences they are having as they have designed and built the EcoVillage.”

The student-designed and -built home is a prime example of engaged learning at Elon, with students tackling real-world problems under the mentorship of faculty and staff. Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Robert Charest, an architect committed to the principles of sustainable design, led the project over two years in his design courses and managing students participating in the construction since July 2023.

“This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a real house in college,” said Kade Iervolino ’24, who remained at Elon after graduation to complete the project and was a peer mentor to others on the build. “We wanted this house to be beautiful and well-made. We accomplished that, and now I have a stronger sense of how to manage projects and work in a team while maximizing efficiency and making quality work.”

All in the Details

It’s easy to admire the student-built home’s design, craftsmanship and details. Some of its features include:

• 500 square feet of interior living space, and an additional 500 square feet of exterior spaces including a wrap-around porch;
• Birchwood paneling and built-in furniture with walnut accents and regionally sourced cypress decking add a natural aesthetic;
• Timber frame constructed from fir beams and raised on piers instead of a traditional foundation to minimize site impact;
• A standing seam canopy shades the home to block excess heat, and cross-ventilation reduces the need for air conditioning;
• Large, north-facing windows provide natural light while conserving energy; and
• A modern, full kitchen and versatile communal living space.

There’s more to admire beyond the specs. Elon students and Charest carefully considered every aspect of the home. When the project began in summer 2023, Charest described it as a laboratory with students building the lab. Throughout, he empowered them to ideate and collaborate on the finished design, and his �þ��� philosophy encourages a less formal teacher-student relationship where students call him by his first name.

“At most construction sites, you come in with a prepared design and execute it. This project didn’t happen that way,” Charest said. “We had a blueprint and models, but about 60% of this finished home was designed and created by students on-site.”

That process allowed students to test their ideas, experiment with concepts and innovate.

This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a real house in college. We wanted it to be beautiful and well-made. We accomplished that, and now I have a stronger sense of how to manage projects and work in a team while maximizing efficiency and making quality work.

One of their ideas led to a key feature: floor tiles made from fir-beam remnants. They cut, sanded and finished more than 2,000 wooden tiles and hand-fit them together into a unique design that resembles parquet flooring and highlights the natural woodgrain.

“Robert let us take on a lot of responsibility for this project. When he wasn’t on site, we used what we learned from him to problem-solve on the spot. Being able to accomplish this work on our own gave us confidence in ourselves and helped us learn,” Iervolino said.

Among the aspects Charest and students are proudest of: They never used or needed a Dumpster. Construction typically creates an abundance of waste. �þ��� repurposed, upcycled and donated leftover materials to organizations like Habitat for Humanity.

Another point of pride: On Friday, Aug. 23, theirs was the first in the EcoVillage to receive a certificate of occupancy from inspectors. A core team of about 10 students this summer worked in shifts to put in six- and seven-day work weeks to have it move-in ready for this school year.

Learning as a Team

“Every day, I was learning something new and making decisions with high stakes. I had to learn quickly how to adapt to new situations and problem solving, and I think that was a team effort. We all supported each other in learning new things.”

– Genevieve Nichols ’25, environmental studies major from Williamsburg, Va.

“We were able to take chances, make mistakes and learn from them. Before, I might have beaten myself up. Now, I can accept them and continue working. That was huge for me.”

– Colin Breuer ’24, environmental and sustainability studies, Naples, Florida

“Coming into this as a project manager, I wasn’t expecting to love it as much as I did. I’ve become a lot more confident handling tools and trusting myself with measurements. You think, ‘I can’t fit the whole shower. I can’t tile an entire floor.’ Then you do it. You realize how capable you are.”

– Macey Rodrigues-Cowl ’25, a project management and marketing double major from Merrimac, Massachusetts

“There’s a passion that comes from being a part of something like this. What has been eye-opening for me is how unexpectedly fluid this process has been to result in this level of quality of construction and design. We’ve had a core group of students working on-site, and also students joining from different classes and a whole range of majors. The continuous refining of the design and decision-making on site happened organically and led to beautiful consensus.”

– Robert Charest, associate professor of environmental studies

About Loy Farm

The EcoVillage project represents a major step forward in the evolution of Loy Farm, which the university acquired in 2000 from the late Bill Loy Jr., whose generous gifts to the university include Loy Center and the land upon which The Inn at Elon was built.

The farm has become a living-learning laboratory in keeping with Elon’s longstanding commitment to sustainability. It houses the Environmental Center at Loy Farm, where students and faculty research agricultural practices, and an active farm overseen by fulltime staff that produces harvests for Harvest Table Culinary Group (�þ��� Dining), Elon’s �þ��� Kitchen, Allied Churches of Alamance County’s Food kitchen and the Burlington Housing Authority.

Enhancing sustainability efforts is an important component of the Boldly Elon strategic plan, which will guide the university through 2030. Boldly Elon calls on the campus community to engage in sustainable practices to become carbon neutral by 2037, investing in renewable energy, reducing energy consumption and preparing students to lead lives that build a sustainable future.

Many philanthropic opportunities are available to support the EcoVillage. To learn how you can make an impact, contact John Gardner ’01, senior director of development, at (336) 278-7432 or jgardner9@elon.edu.

Schedule of Events

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4

1:30-3:30 p.m.��| Landfill on the Lawn (Phi Beta Kappa Plaza)

Stop by Landfill on the Lawn to see how much of the campus’ landfill waste could actually be recycled or composted.

2-3:30 p.m.��| Sustainable Room Spray Giveaway (Moseley Center, first floor)

Relax and bring life to your room with a sustainable aromatherapy spray courtesy of the Eco-Rep Chloe. Stop by Mosley to grab a spray bottle or try your hand at some trivia questions to win sustainable prizes!

5:30-7 p.m. | Eco-Grief Tending in Community (Loy Farm-��)

This program will explore the ever-increasing prevalence of grief in context of growing environmental crises and societal upheaval. In community, we will share our eco-grief with one another and learn practices to critically listen, to be present, and to harness compassion for ourselves, and for others, as tools to navigate loss and uncertainty.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5

2-3 p.m. | Tree Walk (Historic Neighborhood- meet at Fonville Fountain in front of Alamance –��)

During this 1 hour walk, Elon’s two certified arborists will walk through the historic district with you and talk about their favorite trees, the Tree Trail on campus and some insider information on maintenance and sustainability of the Elon urban forest.

7-8 p.m. | Keynote Speaker, Danielle Purifoy: The Long Fight for Environmental Justice in North Carolina (McKinnon Hall; Moseley Center)

This talk will connect the early origins of the environmental justice movement in North Carolina ��in the 1980s to contemporary place-based��challenges��that impact marginalized communities across the state. Though various polluting industries place��disproportionate burden on��communities of color and communities with low monetary��wealth, environmental justice is also interested in larger processes of place development and in the underlying social, political and economic structures undergirding them. Such development processes reveal far more than simple discrimination or market-based decision making that have been long used to explain environmental racism.

Sponsored by The Office of Sustainability, The Center for Race,��Ethnicity��& Diversity Education, the Department of Public Health Studies, the Environmental Studies Department, The Kernodle Center for Civic Life, and the Poverty and Social Justice program.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6

11:30 am-2 p.m. | Pop Up Swap Shop (Moseley Center)

Do you have perfectly good clothing you no longer wear?�� Bring it to the Pop Up Swap Shop to trade it for new-to-you shirts, pants, dresses and more!

6-7 p.m. | Mindful Eating (Loy Farm-��)

Come learn about mindful eating and the effect of your diet on the planet at Loy Farm. Harvest your own food to make an in-season, organic, and local salad!

9-10 p.m. | S’mores with Outdoors (Beck Pool Patio)

Join Elon Outdoors and the Eco-Reps for a special �þ��� Sustainability Week S’mores with Outdoors!

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7

3-6 p.m. | Authentically Alamance Farmers’ Market (Elon Community Church)

Support local farmers, bakers, crafters and the local economy. Stop by the Office of Sustainability table to grab a reusable shopping bag to reduce your waste.

5-6 p.m. | Grow your own Sprouts! (Medallion Plaza)

Grow your own sprouts using repurposed containers with Eco-Rep Ellie.

6-7 p.m.��| Plant Powered Painting (Medallion Plaza)

Get creative and paint with sustainable homemade paints made from natural ingredients by Eco-Rep Claire! Feel free to bring your own brushes or paper!”

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8

2-3 p.m. | Greener Cleaner (Daniel Commons)

Join Eco-Rep Daniel on the Daniel Commons patio to make sustainable all-purpose surface cleaner. Feel free to bring your own spray bottle to reuse if possible!

3-5 p.m. | Bike to Burlington ()

Join Elon Outdoors and the Office of Sustainability to a bike ride to Burlington, where we’ll enjoy some ice cream while learning about local businesses and why they’re an important part of sustainability.�� Bikes will be provided, or you can bring your own!

5:30-6:30 p.m.��| Meditation in the Garden (Meditation Garden- Numen Lumen��Pavilion in Academic��Village)

Iron Tree Blooming club and Eco-Rep Sophie invite you to a peaceful meditation in the Academic Village Meditation Gardens and learn about the importance of green space in sustainability.

The �þ��� Kitchen at �þ��� (CKEU) is an on-campus service opportunity offered to Elon students and staff through the Kernodle Center for Service Learning and Community Engagement. Alongside services, �þ��� Kitchen collects unserved food from various partners for volunteers to prepare and deliver to those in the Burlington community who are in need of food.

Contino works for Caroline Redick,��sustainability coordinator for Elon Dining. Reddick recently organized a collaboration between �þ��� Kitchen and Elon Dining. This is the collaboration that made this year’s reusable to go boxes possible, which was an effort to help reduce waste on campus. This collaboration also allows Contino to spend half of her internship position working with �þ��� Kitchen and the other half working with Elon Dining. Part of her position includes conducting research for the events that Elon dining hosts throughout the year, like their week of “plant forward”-themed meals.

“We did some research on recipes and also an educational component to tell people why eating plant forward means not exclusively vegetarian, but it means like, plant forward as in you need like more vegetables to lower your carbon footprint, so you’re consuming less meat,” Contino said.

Contino said this is actually her favorite part of the job. With events like the “plant forward”-themed meals, Contino and Redick often organize cart displays so Elon students can not only see where their food is coming from, but also see how it impacts the environment. For one of these events, Contino researched the land use, water use and carbon footprint of different types of milk. Elon students then got to try the milk and visually see on a graph the impacts each milk type has on the environment.

“We had an activity where they had to figure out or guess which milk resulted in which impact,” Contino said. “It was cool to see how people thought one thing but it was actually another and so then you have the educational component where you can tell them about why that is.”

In addition to her research and hosting activities to educate her peers on various topics concerning sustainability, Contino spends her time working with �þ��� Kitchen exclusively during the cooking shift. With this, Contino has learned sustainable cooking practices and proper safety protocols. This way, when volunteers come to �þ��� Kitchen to cook and prep meals before they are delivered to the community, Contino can assist the volunteers and answer their questions about the types of people the food is going to and what those organizations do.

“It’s connecting. I think it connects the students with their communities, so they get out of the ‘Elon bubble,’ so to speak,” Contino said. “It’s really great for students to learn about how food is grown, but also what it means to provide one free meal to a group of people once a week — what that means for them and how that impacts their community.”

Prior to beginning her internship, Contino helped with hurricane relief efforts last year through Elon Volunteers! After Hurricane Florence hit, she went to Fayetteville to help package meals for those in need. While Contino had previous experiences with Elon Volunteers! and the Kernodle Center, this internship was her first exposure to �þ��� Kitchen. Contino said this experience has completely transformed her idea of not only what �þ��� Kitchen is, but also what sustainability really means for the environment.

“I just like love that I’m able to like make connections with where my food comes from before I put it in my mouth, because I feel like people today are really disconnected from that,” Contino said.

This position has reminded Contino that serving a campus is a much bigger operation than most people realize.

“I didn’t fully have a grasp on how big a scale it is to do this full operation,” Contino said. “Talking to the chefs actually in the back is really cool, talking about the type of work they do and they’re real people. They serve you food behind a barrier, but everyone who works for Elon Dining is a real person.”

More recently, under the collaboration of �þ��� Kitchen and Elon Dining, Contino has worked on a “reduce, reuse, recaffeinate” initiative. This means that now all on-campus coffee shops except for Irazu will give you a 30-cent discount if you bring your own reusable mug for coffee. She has also worked on a project to reduce the sugar intake of Elon students by exchanging offerings from the soda machines in the various dining halls with sweet teas, lemonade, juice, Powerade, and other drinks with less sugar.

Anyone interested in volunteering with �þ��� Kitchen upon returning to campus should sign up for the Kernodle Center emails. Volunteers can choose to help with any of the following shifts: cooking alongside Elon Dining staff in the Lakeside Kitchen, delivering meals to Allied Churches of Alamance County and food resourcing at Elon’s Loy Farm.

Volunteers go out to the farm on Sunday, cook the meals on Tuesday night and deliver them to the community on Wednesday mornings.

“Landfill on the Lawn” reminded the campus community to properly dispose of its waste. For the demonstration, the Office of Sustainability collected trash from landfill waste bins across campus, and then sorted that waste into piles of landfill garbage, recyclables and compostable items, to show how much “landfill waste” actually belongs in a different bin.

By the end of the demonstration, staff had collected 44.1 pounds of trash, 38.3 pounds of recycling and 31.7 pounds of compost from campus landfill bins, meaning only about 39 percent of the waste found in those bins actually belonged in the landfill.

“I think people often see something that’s compostable and just assume it’s going to compost anywhere,” said Kelly Harer, assistant director of sustainability for education and outreach. “If it goes to the landfill, it doesn’t actually compost, and it actually creates methane, which is a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so it’s really important to put waste in the correct place.”

Michael Ebaugh ’20, a project management and environmental studies major who also works as a waste reduction intern for the Office of Sustainability and Physical Plant, helped sort waste at Monday’s event. A former football player, Ebaugh describes the practice of properly disposing of waste as “taking care of the locker room.”

“I think students are at a prime time when they’re starting to create habits,” he said. “If you take time to properly sort your waste, if you take the time to take care of yourself, if you do the small things right, they start to accumulate into the big things.”

Because all items placed in landfill waste bins at Elon are sent to a landfill, the university hopes to educate the community about proper disposal to avoid sending recyclables or compostable items to the wrong locations. The Office of Sustainability has offered��guidelines��to help��determine what waste belongs in what bin:

• Recycling:��paper, plastic, metal cans, glass, cardboard, printer and toner cartridges, etc.
• Composting:��food scraps (meat, bones, dairy, fruit peels, coffee grinds, etc.) and serviceware labeled as compostable

“People don’t always understand the impact that they can have just from doing their part, so we’re trying to show collectively at �þ���, ‘look at all this stuff we have that we’ve been putting in the landfill that could go in other places,'” Harer said.

“Landfill on the Lawn” marked the start of���þ��� Sustainability Week��at Elon.���þ��� Sustainability Week is an opportunity for Elon students, faculty and staff to come together to examine sustainable habits, particularly as they relate to energy use, and inspire positive, sustainable change throughout the Elon community.��

�þ��� Sustainability Week includes energy competitions, a wellness fair and other events and opportunities to learn about and demonstrate sustainability on campus.

The week is also an opportunity to learn about and celebrate Elon’s current sustainable practices as it works toward becoming a carbon-neutral university by 2037.

Sustainability is an institution-wide effort and a key objective of the Elon Commitment strategic plan. Elon’s success in achieving its sustainability goals largely depends upon every member of the campus community taking an active role.

For more information about sustainability at Elon, visit the Office of Sustainability’s website.

Titled “Why College �þ���es Are Going Green,” the article includes a look at the university’s Sustainable Living Learning Community, how one student combined her passions for art and the environment and why Elon is focused on sustainability.

Kelly Harer, the assistant director of sustainability for education and outreach told the publication that the goal is “to really get the students out to see what sustainability is like in a healthy, thriving community.”

Read the entire article .

New Student and Transition Programs partnered with Elon Dining and the Office of Sustainability to provide stainless steel reusable water bottles to all incoming Elon students in an effort to reduce waste on campus.

“I think by providing students with water bottles and providing education around it, we can help first years create sustainable habits during their time at Elon with hopes of taking those habits with them when they leave,” Amanda Cerra, registered dietitian with Elon Dining, explained.

These water bottles are not your typical water bottle. They are part of the Fill it Forward campaign by Cupanion, which the Office of Sustainability sponsors on campus.

Becoming part of the Fill it Forward campaign is easy. �þ��� simply place the Fill it Forward sticker (given to them by their Orientation Leader) on their water bottle, download the Fill it Forward app and scan the sticker each time the water bottle is filled anywhere on campus.  Each scan donates 10 cents to WaterAid, an organization that helps communities around the world gain access to clean water, hygiene and sanitation.

 “The Fill it Forward program provides incentive for ditching single-use items, which is critical to waste reduction,” notes Kelly Harer, assistant director of sustainability. Returning students who do not have a Cupanion Fill it Forward sticker can pick one up at the water bottle refill stations in Moseley or the Koury Center. 

offers an opportunity for the Elon community to engage in fun, informative events to learn about sustainability issues and celebrate our environment throughout campus.  Earth Week events take place April 16-20.  The schedule for the week is as follows:

Monday, April 16

Stuck on Sustainability, Moseley Table 3:30 to 5 p.m.
Looking for a new sticker for your reusable water bottle or laptop?  Join the Eco-Reps to design and make your own sticker!

Tuesday, April 17

College Coffee, 9:40 to 10:20 a.m.
Learn how to be sustainable on Elon’s campus.

The Future of Environmental Protection, McKinnon Hall 7:30 p.m.
Stan Meiburg, former Acting Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will discuss the Future of Environmental Protection. A Coffee Klatch will be held after his talk in Moseley Kitchen—Bring Your Own Mug to join the discussion!

Wednesday, April 18

Weigh the Waste, Lakeside Dining Hall 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Elon Dining and the Office of Sustainability partner to bring awareness to food waste. �þ��� will weigh their waste, scraping their leftover food into a bin to help visualize the amount of food wasted in one dining period.

Sustainable S’mores, Beck Pool Patio 10 p.m.
Join Elon Outdoors and the Eco-Reps for some delicious s’mores and learn more about sustainability at Elon.

Thursday, April 19

LEED Tour of Schar Hall and Steers Pavilion, Snow Family Grand Atrium 1 p.m.
Learn more about what it means for a building to be LEED certified, particularly with regard to Elon’s newest LEED Silver project,  Schar Hall and Steers Pavilion. 

Farmers Market, Elon Community Church Lawn 3:30 to 6 p.m.
This is the first farmer’s market of the season.  Pick up some fresh, local produce to enjoy!

Friday, April 20

Party for the Planet, Lakeside Plaza 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
Celebrate sustainability with free food, fun activities, and live entertainment!  This event will also feature a thrift shop where students can trade their gently used clothes for new (gently used) clothes. 

See the for additional details.