UlsterCorps Hosts Environmental Justice Summit

Since its founding in 2009, UlsterCorps has hosted a Service Summit each year at SUNY New Paltz, bringing together students, volunteers and community leaders from the nonprofit, business, higher education and governmental sectors to address the work and value of volunteerism and collaborative projects in Ulster County. The focus for this year’s 14th annual summit, held April 17 from 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. at the College Terrace, was environmental issues and sustainability — specifically the ways that young people can make a difference.

“As a young person who is particularly passionate about showing up in the spaces in which decisions are being made and being an advocate for sustainability, I feel incredibly inspired anytime I hear young people talking about the need to address climate change,” said Wren Kingsley, an active SUNY New Paltz student, executive vice president of the Student Association, Sustainability Ambassador and volunteer for several other local organizations. “I think the role that young people have in this moment is to be loud and visible in our fears and concerns and dreams. I think that we have an opportunity to be a little bit audacious and unreasonable when it comes to what we expect from our politicians and our administrators. We have to be bold in what we ask for.”

“I think there’s a lot of work to be done. I feel there’s a lot of need for people to be willing to lead by example,” she said.

The summit was co-sponsored by the Center for Student Engagement, the Benjamin Center for Public Policy at SUNY New Paltz and Ulster Savings Bank. It featured panelists who shared successful case studies, new models and best practices, as well as roundtable discussions that allowed attendees to participate and network.

In addition to Kingsley, speakers and roundtable discussion moderators of the event included Manna Jo Greene, the Ulster County Legislator for District 19, Melissa Iachetta, the program manager for New Yorkers for Clean Power (NYCP) and Kingston Repair Cafe co-facilitator and Ulster County Executive Jen Metzger. Additional speakers included Stiles Najac, the Cornell Cooperative Extension Orange County Food Security program manager and food security community liaison at GleanMobile, Cal Trumann, NYCP’s education and careers coordinator, Chaya Huber, from the Bard College Center for Civic Engagement and Lizabeth Cain, a SUNY New Paltz professor and Repair Cafes volunteer.

“It’s been really fulfilling for me to be a member of this campus that cares so deeply about sustainability,” said Cain. As a professor in the education department at SUNY New Paltz and member of the sustainability faculty learning committee — a multidisciplinary group of faculty who, over the course of the year-long fellowship, participates in workshops and learns how to infuse sustainability questions, concerns and issues into their curriculum — she has been working on expanding young people’s sustainability and environmentalism efforts.

“I think young folks feel a lot of urgency around matters of sustainability and climate change,” she said. “We have to start doing better or do differently as soon as possible.”

“I see the need for sustainability-related education as the top priority in our community at SUNY New Paltz,” Kingsley said.

For Cain, that looks like integrating sustainability and environmental justice into her social studies classes and helping her students, who are future teachers, to understand what that means. “Sustainability is a social studies topic,” she said. “Social studies is about solving human problems, right? Climate change is very definitely a human problem. It’s a problem that humans created, and it’s a problem that humans are going to have to solve.”

Educating young people about sustainability and cultivating this culture of critical thinking feeds their potential to make a difference. 

“It’s important to be talking about issues related to environmental sustainability because a lot of the language that we have to talk about climate change or sustainability or circularity or justice are really hot terms that pop up all over the place,” Kingsley said. “If local communities are not also talking about what those terms mean and how they live in a community, then our narratives about climate change are given to us by entities that are not related to us. They say nothing about us, without us,” she continued. “I think that every community needs to be developing their own relationship to these topics and themes, in order to be able to craft the language in a way that fits the action that is actually happening within a community.”

In addition to the discussion about young people’s role in environmental efforts, the summit also served as a part of the ongoing work of UlsterCorps to deepen the knowledge about volunteerism and to find ways to strengthen a culture of service and collaboration in Ulster County.

“UlsterCorps is a countywide resource, dedicated to fostering a culture of volunteerism, collaborative work and community service,” said Beth Albright, the organization’s co-founder and director. “Our mission is to educate about volunteerism and best practices, facilitate successful and effective volunteer placements and build collaborations among nonprofit organizations, local government agencies and businesses engaged in community involvement throughout Ulster County. While UlsterCorps involves individuals of all ages in its activities, it has a deep commitment to engaging and educating youth in community service and leadership.”

“Volunteerism is central to sustaining healthy, resilient communities,” Albright added. Through this philosophy, the organization has connected thousands of volunteers with dozens of Ulster County agencies that provide food, clothing, shelter, emergency services, literacy training, child and elder care, animal welfare and more to the area’s most vulnerable residents. It has become a vital collaboration-building resource for nonprofit agencies, civic and religious organizations, businesses, schools, government and volunteers of all ages.

Through its website, www.UlsterCorps.org, volunteers can choose from a wide range of opportunities to serve the needs of others, from one-time events to ongoing commitments that meet their abilities, interests and time availability, and can register for e-newsletters and action alerts that notify them of timely events in need of community support.

“I think events like the Service Summit are really intended to share about the work that is being done, to learn together and then to be ultimately inspired by the work that’s happening in our community. This inspiration makes doing work frictionless and thus, more sustainable,” Kingsley said. “So, if you are wanting to get involved, here is a community of people that you will be a part of when you start taking action — people who are here to support you and encourage you to keep doing the work. That is the act of community building, and I think that is super important.”