Facilities/Landscape Services Work-study Sustainability Program
Project Leads: Taylor Rein, Clio Kolkey, Andrew Norton, Sara Soderberg, Angel Alcana
Sponsor: Facilities/Landscape Services
Project Theme: Habitat Restoration
Project Description: This TGIF project aims to address a lack of resources and absence of a program that allows students to work alongside campus groundskeepers in their daily routine. The UC Berkeley campus currently has 16 “gardeners” or personnel from Facilities Services who care for, maintain, and manage the expansive green spaces and public areas. They perform tasks from weeding, removing trash and litter, re-planting flowers, irrigation repair, aeration of lawns, and restoration of the Strawberry Creek habitat. Sadly, the landscape services are grossly understaffed for the expansive amount of space that needs to be taken care of on the entire campus. This grant would offer the opportunity for students to earn a paid position to perform some of this same work to care for our campus greenspaces, remove litter, and remove invasive plants under the guidance and supervision of Campus Operations manager, and the core team of groundskeepers who care for specific zones of campus.
Goals of Project:
1) Hire 2-3 Work study students to join the landscape services work study program Spring 2021
2) publish personal biographies of the campus gardeners on the facilities website to give thanks to underrepresented workers
3) Plant and maintain 3 campus natural areas, including the Strawberry creek corridor, the Hearst Women’s gym garden, and the Li-Ka Shing Prairie Garden.