MASSPIRG at Greenfield Community College
Also check out some of our campaign work from this last year!
Global Warming Solutions:
Nationwide, Stopping Global Warming continues to be one of the hottest issues on campus. This past summer MASSPIRG helped to pass the Global Warming Solutions Act which will decrease global warming pollution 80% by the year 2050. Reaffirming the power of student activism, MASSPIRG students lead the way this fall and organized victory parties for the GWSA across the state bringing Senators to campuses to thank each of them for his/her work in helping to pass the Global Warming Solutions Act. This semester we continued our work to solve global warming on a federal level. We had call-in days to Representative Olver and Senator Kerry asking for more funding for public transit in the stimulus package and it happened! We went to DC for Powershift, a global warming conference, and delivered petitions gathered on campus to Rep. Olver’s office.
We collected over 40 pictures of students posing with "Olver" and delivered them to his office in DC.
New Voters Project:
We are thrilled that there were 2.2 million new young voters who turned out to vote on November 4th as compared to 2004. The young voters’ share of the electorate also surpassed that of over 65 year olds, an impressive feat. As the largest on the ground nonpartisan organization working to turn out the youth vote we’re more than pleased with the results. Thanks again to everyone who helped on the campaign. Here on campus we registered 200 students and made numerous contacts to student during the days leading up to Election Day through events such as a root beer ‘vote float’ give-a-way, Presidential debate watching bingo, tie-dying vote shirts, and an election trivia toss game. We had local media coverage about our events and what students at GCC thought about the election, too. We educated students about Question 1 and encouraged them to vote against it. The student vote got a lot of attention from local elected officials, and we expect them to pay attention to us during future elections!
Hunger and Homelessness:
With the current economic crisis, the Hunger and Homelessness campaign is as critical as ever. In the fall, The Center for Self-Reliance Coordinator, Dino Schnelle, came to campus to talk about local Hunger and Homelessness and what students can do to help and students volunteered at Franklin County meal-sites and food pantries. This semester, student Jamie Spencer helped organize the Hunger Cleanup, which was part of a national service-a-thon. We raised over $1,300 for our local United Way, as well as for national and international hunger relief projects. As part of the Hunger Cleanup students and faculty participated in a national day of service where they went to the local YCMA, NELCWIT, The Food Pantry in Orange, and The Center for Self-Reliance.
Zero Waste:
We burn and bury over 6 million tons of trash every year in Massachusetts. We need make reduce, reuse recycle more than just a slogan, and start shifting how we think about trash to eventually get Massachusetts to zero waste. Over the course of the next few months, the DEP will be creating its proposed Master Plan for Solid Waste, which they will release in the summer for public comment. We want to make sure they come out with a strong plan that prioritizes the three R’s – reduce, reuse, and recycle – and doesn’t continue on a path to burying and burning trash. We collected over 100 signatures on a petition to the Commissioner of the DEP and are delivering them to her in 2 weeks (April 27).
Higher Education Affordability:
MASSPIRG worked with a national coalition to reauthorize the Higher Education bill with provisions to make college more affordable, including shifted more than $20 billion in student lender subsidies to bolster grant and loan support for students. The bill would lower interest rates over five years on subsidized Stafford student loans, which would save the average low or middle-income borrower starting school in 2007 $2,300 in debt. In addition, because of our advocates in D.C. and the work our organizers were doing to raise visibility for the issue around the country, the bill included an Affordable Textbooks provision. This provision will make textbooks cheaper by mandating disclosure of all prices and new edition information to professors and faculty, requiring unbundling of all pre-packaged class materials, and a minimum two-week advance notice of materials to be used in all classes. Just last month, we also helped get $15 billion in additional funding for Pell Grants and are now working to pass President Obama’s budget, which includes $42 billion in Pell grants.
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