Empowerhouse featured in Society for College and University Planning Journal
The Empowerhouse is a collaborative project between Parsons, Environmental Policy & Sustainability Management program, the Stevens Institute of Technology and community partners that was submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2011 Solar Decathalon project. Not only did Empowerhouse take first place in the most affordable category, but the team also partnered with Habitat for Humanity so that families are actually living in these sustainable houses. Recently Empowerhouse was featured in an article in the Planning for Higher Education journal distributed through the Society for College and University Planning.
Student Projects: Sustainable Urban Communities
Each semester, the Sustainable Urban Communities (SUC) practicum offers Milano students the opportunity to reach outside the classroom and make a impact in the broader community, addressing issues from affordable housing to food systems to disaster recovery. To learn more, please contact Professor John Stinar (stinarj@newschool.edu). Below are some highlights from recent student projects, which can also be accessed on the Sustainable Milano blog.
Rebuilding Breezy Point: Spring 2013
The goal of the Breezy Point Team was to assist in the recovery of the community in a way that brought sustainability issues into the discussion. During the semester, the team also planned an event to engage New School students in the community as volunteers. In April, we successfully brought a group of volunteers down to Breezy Point to clean up public areas and install sheetrock into homes.
We also looked at how the rebuilding was accomplished in other disaster areas. In particular, we were inspired by the story of Greensburg, KS. Greensburg was 95% destroyed by a tornado in 2007, and has since rebuilt as a model “Green Town.” As part of our coursework, we helped create and support initiatives to bring representaitves of Greensburg, KS, to the community to talk about their experiences. A formal information session with Greensburg residents is now planned for later this summer in Breezy Point.
Housing Policy Field Trip Photos
On May 3rd, Milano Professor Alex Schwartz took his Housing Policy students on a field trip to the Lott Community Development Corporation in Harlem. The class met with the CDC’s Executive Director Chris Cirillo, who among other things took the class on a walking tour to see some of the group’s housing developments.
Student Projects: Amy Chasan
MilanoManagement interviewed Nonprofit Management master’s candidate, Amy Chasan, about her social enterprise, Sweet GenerationTM & her win in the New Challenge.
Amy, congratulations and thank you for taking time during finals madness to chat with us. If you could, please briefly describe your project, where you are in its development, and your next steps.
Sweet Generation™ is an online custom bakery that increases access to Arts education for children nationwide by providing an alternative fundraising platform. It’s a 21st century bake sale on steroids!
With extremely limited availability of funding for arts education, schools and arts organizations often run small-scale fundraising events like bake sales, expending a lot of effort, with a limited audience and low return. Sweet Generation™ leverages the universal love of sweets and the urge to do good into new sources of funds for arts education by bringing community-based arts fundraising to a national online consumer market.
Currently, I am in the process of developing Sweet Generation’s operating foundation, which is what I plan to use the New Challenge funds for. I am using additional investment funds to develop the fundraising platform and e-commerce site. I am also really focused on developing the brand and securing partners. There is a ton of momentum behind this project already and some awesome arts programs are eagerly waiting for our platform to launch. In the meantime, we are making donations to our future partners from our current sales. For instance, we recently catered custom branded cupcakes and cookies for the MBA Innovation Summit for Yale, Columbia and Wharton, and 25% of the net proceeds are being donated to the Hip Hop Re:Education Project.
Right now the team consists of me, another baker, an Arts Ambassador, three graduate student consultants from The New School, a couple per-diem Brand Ambassadors, and an amazing Board of Advisors. We are also in the process of hiring three interns. We deliver our baked goods to the five boroughs, as well as Long Island and New Jersey, and in the next few months we hope to be shipping!
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