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History of S.A.V.E.
The first major project of the group was the very first pilot recycling program, involving office paper, cardboard, and aluminum, on campus. From January 1989 through spring of 1990, SAVE members came by once a week and gathered materials from RECYCLE boxes they had distributed to every office in Nevins Hall (and later West); they took these items in their own vehicles to a local buyer and sold them. Save kept track of the amounts of materials that they were keeping out of the "waste stream" (i.e. the landfill) and the proceeds they were accruing [link to report] and used this information to lobby the VSC administration to take over the job. In response to the group's efforts, recycling gradually spread to most other parts of the campus and became an official task of the administration and the Faculty Senate.
On April 22, 1990, a major celebration in recognition of the 20th anniversary of the first Earth Day was orgainzed by SAVE, in conjunction with the Valdosta-area environmental group ACER and with city and county officials and private businesses, and was held at Palms Quad. Starting months before, SAVE held paper and aluminum drives and poster and essay contests for area schools. They sold T-shirts, food, and drinks to the Saturday crowd of over 500, and they raised almost $2,000 for the club--not to mention a lot of environmental awareness. They distributed free tree seedlings and environmental literature, and they started a trend of celebrating Earth Day in Valdosta. Guest speakers included Dr. Bailey and Sen. Loyce Turner, and Cheehaw park had many animals on display.
Over the next few years, SAVE members were involved with litter cleanups on One-mile Branch, the Withlacoochee and Alapaha Rivers and the Okefenokee Swamp. They continued to be involved in recycling efforts on campus, which spread to some activism in trying to convince the City of Valdosta to adopt a curbside recycling program (which the city manager at first adamantly opposed... and you know the rest of the story).
SAVE students over the past 10 years have expressed their concern about the cutting down of healthy old trees on our campus, which was being done for a variety of reasons--they even held a "Funeral" for the trees in 1989. That early activism helped raise some consciousness that contributed to the adoption by the Faculty Senate in 1993 of the VSU Tree Preservation and Maintenance Policy. Again, in 1996, SAVE members tried to raise awareness about the impending loss of 6 acres of trees, partly in a wetland west of Sustella Ave., for a proposed parking lot, in an action that seemed to violate not only the VSU Tree Policy but also federal wetlands protection laws (which it did!), not to mention common sense (it also turned out part of the site used to be a landfill, and the soil was not suitable for the weight of pavement and cars--not without some very expensive remediation!). SAVE students conducted a sudent survey, and received several hundred responses. They discussed the results of the survey and their concerns with President Bailey and Vice President Brignat; shortly after that, the 6 acres of trees were cut down, and work on the site continued daily until the project was shut down by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for violation of Sect. 404 of the Federal Clean Water Act.
