From conservation-friendly events on campus to a wide range of service opportunities across the Raleigh area, there are many ways to embrace an eco-friendly lifestyle whilst at NC State. NC State’s very own student-run conservation organization, Roots & Shoots, is working to add key environmental awareness to students’ everyday life.
The conservation-oriented group has been recognized for the past six years as a student organization here at NC State. However, NC State’s Roots & Shoots chapter is part of a larger organization of the same name, which was founded in 1991 by groundbreaking British primatologist Jane Goodall. The international organization — which focuses on projects related to conservation and humanitarian issues — gained its chapter here at NC State back in 2011 and began to operate within the campus and Raleigh communities.
“We do a lot of different things,” said Kaitlin Bratt, a third-year studying accounting and the group’s current president. “In the past, we’ve really been focused on education in the form of having speakers come, whether they’re faculty here or faculty from different colleges or universities who have an interest in conservation. … We’ve done a lot of service trips in the past, like doing Service Raleigh or helping at places like the Wedge Community Garden in Raleigh, where we literally sat in the dirt and planted stuff.”
Many of the group’s service projects have targeted issues relating to the Raleigh area, including Eno River cleanups and volunteer work at community gardens across the area.
“We do a lot of helping,” said Kate Hackney, a fourth-year studying animal science and the group’s current secretary. “If there’s a group that wants to help the environment, or anything like that, we’re here to help. We find a lot of people who reach out and are also tied in with conservation, and we’re able to put in some work there.”
According to Bratt, Roots & Shoots is focusing more on the hands-on aspects of conservation this year, as opposed to the speaker-heavy schedule they have had over the past few years.
“I love it whenever the events are very hands-on, but you also learn a lot from it … like when we helped at the community garden,” Bratt said. “Going in I didn’t really know how to garden, so learning about that was really cool.”
Although Roots & Shoots receives most of their funding through the school, they do hold fundraisers in order to raise money for charities and additional conservation-based organizations in the community. One of their more recent fundraisers on campus was their succulent sale.
“We decided to do a fundraiser that was a little bit for us but mostly for charities,” Bratt said. “The succulent sale was our first big fundraising event in years, and we’re thinking about making it a yearly thing. We’re really trying to donate to charities that will make the most impact. … We just recently donated to an animal shelter that is helping animals who were displaced by hurricanes in Florida called Best Friends Animal Society.”
In all of their projects, the group’s main goal is to help others become more aware of environmental issues and to educate the NC State community about larger conservation efforts across the world.
“I really enjoy helping people out,” Hackney said. “I’ve been in a couple of clubs that are just focused on the members and have done their own thing … so this group has given me the opportunity to meet people in all types of organizations. I think it’s really nice that we’re able to help out people in other departments.”
Roots & Shoots is a collaborative effort, always open to hearing fresh ideas in support of bettering the environment — Bratt said nearly half of the events the organization has done this semester were members’ ideas.
The group can be contacted via email at ncsurootsandshoots@gmail.com for information on how to get involved, events and upcoming meetings.
