Happy (half) Birthday, Ira!

Last week when we celebrated Ausrius' birthday, we found out that Ira's birthday is on July 25, and realized that her half birthday was on January 25!!! So we planned a surprise all week for her! We bought a very fancy coffee tablespoon with amber for her (she loves coffee!) and I made Thai green chicken curry and Thai iced tea for dinner. She was very surprised!

singing "Happy Birthday"

(the candle is in a scoop of rice!)

Ausrius likes to tease Ira by saying "I love you", and so he delivered her present through a fake proposal! The funny part was that last week while we were preparing stone soup, Ira actually (jokingly) said "I will marry you!" after tasting Ausrius' brownies! It was a perfect set-up that she didn't even realize in the moment!

another green video...

Here's the other video that was made for our promotions and education during Green Week. Made by Josh Garber (Neumann East RD) and two of his RAs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTxe4w3L2ug&feature=youtu.be

Stone Soup

Tonight we had our big event - we started cooking at 3pm, and somehow everything got finished by 7pm! We made a huge pot of soup (this is where most of the "random" things went), a huge pot of fried rice with 30 eggs, three trays of open-face sandwiches, and 5 cakes! There were around 100 students and faculty that came - and everything was eaten much quicker than I expected. We showed a short video as well about food waste. You can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCxx7ej5JNc&feature=youtu.be 

We had a great time together as a team - it was awesome to cook, laugh, and work together - I am really proud of how we pulled off the evening!

 first up: cutting LOTS of vegetables (Ira and Kirill)

Ausrius, the cake master, and Natallia frying vegetables

Kirill and Ira making sandwiches

Natallia with all the completed sandwiches
(it looks like a Rachel's Bread open house to me!)

so many yummy treats made by our resident baker, Ausrius

(the apron he is wearing is his birthday gift from us - he turned 21 this week!)

 in action... 

the calm before the storm...

Tonight we had a presentation by two faculty members on going vegan and making green choices in every day life. (However, I forgot to take pictures!) My team is also organizing a "Stone Soup" event for tomorrow evening for the "Green Week" finale. After tonight's presentation, they went through both residence halls to collect food donations from each room - a great way to advertise, and also to get some food that might normally be wasted! (It took them 2 1/2 hours - good job, team!) Tomorrow I will go to the store for a few ingredients we need (sugar, flour, butter, bread) and we will make a meal out of all the food we collected tonight. We'll start cooking at 3pm, and hope to be ready to serve everything by 7pm! I'm in charge of making it taste good, so hopefully my experience at the bakery will pay off!!!

a list of everything they collected!

dry goods and some vegetables

a full fridge!!! (including 59 eggs!)

Carbon Footprint

Today in the main building at LCC, we had computers set up where students could find out what their carbon footprint was. The figures are based on how much water you use, how much you consume, where your food comes from, how much you travel, etc. 

Check it out yourself! http://www.earthday.org/footprint-calculator

Happy Birthday, Ausrius!

Tomorrow is Ausrius' birthday, so we surprised him tonight with a cake and candles! He's turning 21!!!

Green Week

It's been a busy but good week, and I'm looking forward to the upcoming one even more! This week Residence Life is organizing "Green Week" which is an effort to educate our campus about all things related to caring for the environment. We are having a variety of different activities: a carbon footprint survey, a documentary viewing, a panel discussion, and a "Stone Soup" event. Keep checking back this week for more updates on how the week is going!

Below is a picture of the advertisement we made for the week. We used recycled newspaper, and spray-painted each one with a stencil made out of an old place mat. We are trying to use recycled paper or supplies that we already have for the week rather than creating more waste or using unneeded resources. I think the posters look AWESOME - each one is different!

 If you can't tell, there is a factory on top, and roots on the bottom, and it says "Whose side are you on?" This was our "test" poster, but ended up being one of my favorites!