Yesterday, two Winter Anthropology classes took part in a quieter Eco Encore Project, under the capable leadership of my successor: Project Coordinator Johnny Robbins! I was Project Coordinator for two quarters (with three and then eight classes) here at Edmonds, and the experience was truly transformational for me.
There were several interesting innovations this time around, which I was able to appreciate for the first time solely as a student. As a member of Tom Murphy and Tony Tessandori’s American Religious Diversity class, the project was introduced to us much as it had been previously, as a collective action problem elucidated by Garret Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” and its latter day response “The Drama of the Commons”. But rather than being arbitrarily assigned to “populations” of our peers, both enthusiastic and indifferent, we were given the liberty of forming our own groups. These “religions” would court and reject members according to their own, student-determined, strictures. This added a new, invigorating facet to the Eco Encore Project.
As always, the students competed amongst participant classes to raise the most recyclable media (books, CDs, DVDs, software) for our community partner: Eco Encore, a 501(c)3 nonprofit based in South Seattle. Eco Encore has received $36,000 worth of material from Edmonds Community College students over the past year, $27,000 since my initial involvement. Eco Encore distributes its profits to local environmental groups to support their endeavors.
I was pleased this quarter to work with a group of students eager to succeed in our “religious marketplace”, like my quirky group leader: Venetia Ponds. Venetia embraced suggestions from many of Tom’s lectures on the traits of successful religions. Often with hilarious results. Our religion was named “The First Church of the Mystical Twin Gods”, our “deities” were our Anthropology instructors Tom and Tony. We “worshipped” them by meditating on their “religious scripture” (i.e. their study guides). Members of our church were mandated to identify themselves by wearing “sacred beads”, and were expected to provide tribute in the form of two boxes worth of recyclable media for Eco Encore. This was easily the most fun that I’ve experienced participating in an Eco Encore collective action model.
The project followed its established timeline, culminating in yesterday’s Eco Encore Listing Party. I enjoyed a chance to see my old friend, Eco Encore’s Executive Director Jessie Alan. We were quartered in the library’s computer classroom, with our boxes and boxes (and boxes and boxes) of donations to appraise with the (still, to some) puzzling and complex software program Booksku. The students learned to determine which items were worth more than $2.00, which helps Eco Encore decide which media are valuable enough to warrant sale on their online store. Once they had decided whether their item was a “reject” or not, students where then responsible for creating an inventory listing with a product description and an estimated competitive price. We all got the chance to be online booksellers for a day.
For this quarter, a couple of dozen volunteers committed to two hour shifts, much less arduous than three to eight hours. They received an hourly rate added onto their group total, a successful addition to the project that we initiated when I was Project Coordinator, and extra credit in their classes, plus the opportunity to figure out how much their donations were actually worth. Music accompanied the volunteers’ absorbing labor, but there was a lot playful bantering between computer stations while providing our chosen nonprofit with a vital service. Yesterday represented the first time since the Listing Parties’ conception that all of the student’s contributions were processed within a single day. We’ve certainly become more efficient than when I coordinated the first one on our campus!