Domestic Violence Awareness

October was both Breast Cancer Awareness month and Domestic Violence Awareness month. I'm sure you saw all the 'pink' around for the Breast Cancer Awareness, so I wanted to focus this blog entry on Domestic Violence Awareness and a sustainability related project that MCC Southern/Dobson is doing between now and the end of the semester.

Many people don't know that when a woman finally decides to leave an abusive relationship, that is the hardest part she will face. She may lose her home, her job (from missing work due to hospitalizations or embarrassing bruises), many of her personal items and maybe even her vehicle, her childcare or even her children, and many of her friends and emotional support (neighbors, etc.). She will have to try to find a place to stay and help reestablish herself on her own. She will undoubtedly have self-esteem problems and poor direction or goals.  Many women leave their situation and don't have the time or the means to take enough of the correct clothing. For that reason, the MCC Women's Leadership Group, the MCC Career and Reentry Center, and the MCC Sustainability Team are collaborating on a project to ensure that these women have the clothing they need to get or keep their jobs. This can eliminate just a small amount of the stress that goes along with their situation. This project also involves Cup O' Karma (the wonderful coffee shop across Southern from MCC), and the Support, Education, Empowerment & DirectionS (SEEDs) program to which all of their proceeds are donated. For more information on the coffee shop and support program, click here: SEEDS and here Cup O' Karma

Our clothing drive begins on Monday November 1 and the collection bins will be in the Library. There will be bins to place purses, women's shoes, accessories (jewelry, belts, scarves), toiletries, and a clothing rack for suits, skirts, pants, and blouses. You can also support the effort by stopping in for coffee or snacks at Cup O' Karma Community Cafe for a Cause at 1710 W Southern in Mesa.

Domestic violence isn't just about battered women. The victims can be men, women, children, or even beloved pets. The abusers can be parents, siblings, significant others, or adult children. The Bravery Project is a local organization to support survivors of domestic violence. On their website, you can read many stories of survivors, and unfortunately, some stories are of the surviving family members of victims that did not survive their abuse. Please take a few minutes to click here to read the stories and see the scope of the violence of abuse: The Bravery Project  You may even know someone that is currently experiencing problems. You should be there to listen and support them, and help them when they are ready to leave their situation. But most of all, you need to be aware that this sort of abuse is happening all around you, every day.

Public Service Announcement Please view this powerful PSA and remember the message.

New and fun projects coming up

Hi all you greenies! It's been awhile since a post, so I thought I would take a few moments to tell you about a few fun things we have coming up at MCC Southern/Dobson campus.

First up, we'll have Homecoming on Saturday, October 23. MCC has signed up to participate in a national recycling challenge at our Homecoming game. It's called the EPA Game Day Recycling Challenge.

More than 80 colleges and universities (plus our one lone community college / sole Arizona school!) are participating in a competition to see who can divert the most waste from one football game in October. We haven't done recycling at the stadium before, so we are going to try it out for the first time as part of this challenge and we'll see how we do. If you think about it, a lot of water and juice bottles are tossed out at the stadium all the time: during games, events, and even during the day when community members come to run, walk, and exercise. Leading up the game day, we hope to roll out some information to get folks aware and interested. At the game, we'll reduce the number of trash cans available and pair up the ones that are left with a recycling bin, creating several recycling stations. We'll have some fun games and prizes too. We'll need someone at the main gate letting all entrants know about the recycling competition and encouraging them to recycle. We'll also need some folks to be at the recycling stations and make sure the right waste goes to the right place. If YOU are interested in volunteering before or during the game, contact us at recycle@mcmail.maricopa.edu and we'll be in touch with more information.

DUMPSTER DIVE, NUMBER FIVE

Our 5th Annual Dumpster Dive is soon approaching, this year's date is Friday, November 19. This coincides with America Recycles Day earlier in the week. If you haven't been to our Dumpster Dive before, it's quite fun and a big eye-opener (so we have been told!). We sort through one 24-hour period worth of trash generated at the Southern/Dobson campus to find out what we are sending off to the landfill. Everyone is always surprised at how much trash is generated at MCC in just one day, and about all the things that are not being recycled but could have been. Here's a link to some photos from last years, and the captions include some of the statistics and info gathered. Dumpster Dive 2009 

Here are some of the comments about last year's Dumpster Dive:

• It was a very interesting experience. I never knew how much material that was not recyclable was put into recycling bins. I know a lot more about which materials are recyclable and I respect the process of it. 
• It was very shocking to see how much recyclable material was mixed with regular trash. I learned that it doesn’t take much to recycle and everyone should! It was a satisfying feeling to know I was of help for the project.
• That was actually more fun than I thought. If you worked around a good group of people, the time flies and you definitely have more fun. People really don’t think before they throw stuff away. We need to watch ourselves.
• I had fun. It’s good to get out of the class and go to the next level, even though it was digging through garbage. It was good to see so many people out helping out in the Dumpster Dive. There were some rather unpleasant items found. But all in all it was a somewhat clean process.
• When you throw something away you never really think about it again. For this reason alone, it might be a beneficial requirement for all school children to experience a dumpster dive day. If you have to think about trash still existing, after you're through with it, then you will be more conscientious about how you behave, with regards to consuming and recycling.

There were dozens more comments, but these are the types of things people are saying after they experience the Dumpster Dive. We hope you can come join us this year and see for yourself how important it is to police our waste and take care of our resources. Even if you don't have time to help us out, please at least wander by the lawns by the Clock Tower to see how it's going. Even 5 minutes there will teach you something! We'll have a few info tables as well, like City of Mesa and SRP.

Come volunteer for Dumpster Dive. We have both 'clean' and 'dirty' jobs, but both are very fun. The event runs from 8am-noon, but we could also use help at 7am and from 12-2pm with set-up and clean-up. Contact recycle@mc.maricopa.edu for more information.

We hope you volunteer or show up at one or both events. Recycling is VERY important; it protects the limited resources that this planet has to offer, and it reduces the amount of stuff that we bury in the ground and try to forget about.

Please, share this blog with our new 'share' feature below, and comment here and let us know what you think of our events and about recycling in general!

That's it for this post. Have a wonderful week!