Local Campaign Info and Meeting Times
Check back soon for more info...
in the mean time:Want to get involved and make some social change?
Here are a few of our accomplishments from this last semester.
Hunger and Homelessness: Our hunger and homelessness campaign focuses on building awareness as well as providing service, both financially and through volunteer work. This semester we continued our bi-annual Swipe-a-Meal event which we ran in conjunction with Community Outreach. Through our combined efforts, we generated over $10,500 for local food shelters in just over 3 hours. In November, we hosted Hunger and Homelessness Awareness week, during which we held several great events including our annual Homelessness Sleepout. We ran this event in collaboration with the Multi-Cultural Greek Council and Community Outreach during which over 100 students spent the night on Dow Field in cardboard boxes, experiencing for one night what the homeless experience every night. We also hosted a Faces of Homelessness Panel which entailed several previously homeless speakers coming to campus to discuss their personal bouts with homelessness. Furthermore, throughout the semester our students volunteered at local shelters, including "My Sisters Place" which our students volunteer at twice a week. Finally, we sent seven students to a conference in Chicago about hunger and homelessness, where the students learned more about the problem and took part in workshops to help develop their activist skills.
Making Higher Education Affordable: Our higher education campaign encompasses two different issues: student debt and textbook affordability. Throughout the semester our higher education campaign has collected entries for our Student Debt Yearbook. UConn students were asked to submit their name, graduation year, amount of debt as well as a picture for the yearbook. We collected over 200 entries for the yearbook which will be released before the end of the semester. Our students also spoke with over 70 faculty members about textbook affordability, educating professors about Open Textbooks. We did this in collaboration with a national effort by all the PIRG student chapters across the country to build support for the use of Open Textbooks, , an alternative and more affordable source for textbooks.
Global Warming: Our global warming solutions campaign had two objectives this semester: 1. To spread awareness for the solutions to global warming and 2. To build public support for President Obama leading up to his trip to Copenhagen this month for a U.N. Convention on Climate Change. Earlier this semester we set up 366 pinwheels on campus, representing the 366 wind turbines it would take to power the entirety of Tolland County in order to educate students about the benefits of wind power. We also hosted a rally in collaboration with Eco-Husky in conjunction with International Day of Climate Action. We turned out nearly 200 students outside of the Student Union to show support for reducing America's carbon emissions. Finally, we collected 165 video petitions from UConn students to be sent to the White House to show student support for a strong international climate change agreement.
Health Care Reform: Due to the urgent need for reform within our health care system, UConnPIRG students decided to take on a campaign to build public support for the reforms currently making their way through Congress. In order to show this support, students generated hundreds of letters and phone calls from UConn students to Senator Lieberman urging him to vote in support of reform that includes a viable public option. Furthermore, ConnPIRG students from all across the state collaborated to host a press conference to release a ConnPIRG report about how the high cost of health care has affected Connecticut small business. Finally, our health care campaign set up and hosted a debate between the UConn College Democrats and College Republicans in order to educate the student body about this issue.
21st Century Transportation: Our 21st century transportation campaign focuses on building support for the increased use of public transportation, especially the use of high speed rail. Our campaign spent the semester educating students about the economic and environmental benefits of public transportation through tabling events and through the distribution of literature. Furthermore, our transit campaign collected surveys leading up to Thanksgiving break about UConn students travel plans, including where they were going and how they were traveling. This information is currently being compiled into a report for release later this week in order to highlight the economic and environmental benefits of utilizing public transportation.
No matter your level of involvement, we're only able to do this work because of your support - so thanks again for another great fall semester.
We're looking forward to hitting the ground running this year on our spring campaigns, and hope to see you around!
On Election Day lines were as long as 3 hours for students to vote. UConnPIRG as part of the UConnVotes Coalition registered over 3,600 students to vote. On Election Day in Mansfield over 3,000 showed up!
UConnPIRG students in front of their cardboard box at the 2008 Homelessness Sleepout on Dow Field.
UConnPIRG students at a call-in table to stop global warming
UConnPIRG students with Governor Romney as part of the What's Your Plan? Campaign.